SOCIOLOGY FOR THE SOUTH, 



FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY. 



BY GEOKGE FITZHUGH 



THE THING THAT HAS BEEN, IT IS THAT WHICH SHALL BE ; AND THAT 
WHICH IS DONE IS THAT WHICH SHALL BE DONE; AND THERE IS NO NEW 
THING UNDER THE SUN.— Ecc. 1 : 9. 



Naturam expelles furca, tamen usque recurret.— Horace. 



RICHMOND, 
MORRIS, PUBLISHER. 
1854. 







Entered according to an act of Congress, in the year 1854, "by 

GEORGE FITZHUGH, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for 

the Eastern District of Virginia. 



C. H. WYNNE, PRINTER, RICHMOND. 



TO THE PEOPLE OF THE SOUTH. 



We dedicate this little work to you, because it is a 
zealous and honest effort to promote your peculiar inte- 
rests. Society has been so quiet and contented in the 
South — it has suffered so little from crime or extreme 
poverty, that its attention has not been awakened to 
the revolutionary tumults, uproar, mendicity and crime 
of free society. Few are aware of the blessings they 
enjoy, or of the evils from which they are exempt. 

From some peculiarity of taste, we have for many 
years been watching closely the perturbed workings of 
free society. Its crimes, its revolutions, its sufferings 
and its beggary, have led us to investigate its past 
history, as well as to speculate on its future destiny. 
This pamphlet has been hastily written, but is the 
result of long observation, some research and much 
reflection. Should it contain suggestions that will enlist 
abler pens to show that free society is a failure and 
its philosophy false, our highest ambition will be grat- 
ified. Believing our positions on these subjects to be 
true, we feel sanguine they are destined to final vin- 
dication and triumph. TTe should have written a larger 
work, had not our inexperience in authorship warned 



IV DEDICATION. 

us that we had better await the reception of this. We 
may again appear in the character of writer before the 
public ; but we shall not intrude, and would prefer that 
others should finish the work which we have begun. 
Treating subjects novel and difficult of comprehension, 
we have designedly indulged in iteration; for we pre- 
ferred offending the ear and the taste of the reader, 
to confounding or confusing him by insufficient elabo- 
ration. In truth, fine finish and rotundity are not 
easily attained in what is merely argumentative and 
controversial. 

On all subjects of social science, Southern men, from 
their position, possess peculiar advantages when they 
undertake discussion. History, past and cotempora- 
neous, informs them of all the phenomena of other 
forms of society, and they see every day around them 
the peculiarities and characteristics of slave society, of 
which little is to be learned from books. The ancients 
took it for granted that slavery was right, and never 
attempted to justify it. The moderns assume that it 
is wrong, and forthwith proceed to denounce it. The 
South can lose nothing, and may gain, by the discussion. 
She has, up to this time, been condemned without a 
hearing. 

With respect, your fellow-citizen, 

GEO. FITZHUGH. 



PREFACE. 



We hesitated soine time in selecting the title of our 
work. We did not like to employ the newly-coined 
word Sociology. We could, however, find none other 
in the whole range of the English language, that would 
even faintly convey the idea which we wished to express. 
We looked to the history of the term. We found that 
within the last half century, disease, long lurking in 
the system of free society, had broken out into a hun- 
dred open manifestations. Thousands of authors and 
schemers, such as Owen, Louis Blanc and Fourier, had 
arisen, proposing each a different mode of treatment for 
the disease which all confessed to exist. Society had 
never been in such a state before. New exigencies in 
its situation had given rise to new ideas, and to a new 
philosophy. This new philosophy must have a name, 
and as none could be found ready-made to suit the 
occasion, the term Sociology was compounded, of hybrid 
birth, half Greek and half Latin, as the technical appel- 
lative of the new-born science. In Europe, the term 
is familiar as " household words." It grates harshly, 
as yet, on Southern ears, because to us it is new and 
superfluous — the disease of which it treats being un- 



VI PREFACE. 

known amongst us. But as our book is intended to 
prove that we are indebted to domestic slavery for 
our happy exemption from the social afflictions that 
have originated this philosophy, it became necessary 
and appropriate that we should employ this new word 
in our title. The fact that, before the institution of 
Free Society, there was no such term, and that it is 
not in use in slave countries, now, shows pretty clearly 
that Slave Society,, ancient and modern, has ever been 
in so happy a condition, so exempt from ailments, that 
no doctors have arisen to treat it of its complaints, or 
to propose remedies for their cure. The term, there- 
fore, is not only appropriate to the subject and the 
occasion, but pregnantly suggestive of facts and argu- 
ments that sustain our theory. 



CHAPTER I. 



FREE TRADE. 



Political economy is the science of free society. 
Its theory and its history alike establish this po- 
sition. Its fundamental maxims, Laissez-faire and 
" Pas trop gouverner" are at war with all kinds 
of slavery, for they in fact assert that individuals 
and peoples prosper most when governed least. 
It is not, therefore, wonderful that such a science 
should not have been believed or inculcated whilst 
slavery was universal. Roman and Greek mas- 
ters, feudal lords and Catholic priests, if con- 
scientious, must have deemed such maxims false 
and heritical, or if unconscientious, would find in 
their self-interest sufficient reasons to prevent 
their propagation. Accordingly we find no such 
maxims current, no such science existing, until 
slavery and serfdom were extinct and Catholic- 
ism maimed and crippled, in the countries that 
gave them birth. Men belonging to the higher 
classes of society, and who neither feel nor appre- 
hend the ills of penury or privation, are very apt 
to think little of those ills, and less of the class 
who suffer them. Especially is this the case with 
unobservant, abstract thinkers and closet scholars, 



8 FREE TRADE. 

who deal with little of the world and see less of 
it. Such men judge of mankind, their progress 
and their happiness, by the few specimens sub- 
jected to the narrow range of their experience 
and observation. After the abolition of feudalism 
and Catholicism, an immense amount of unfettered 
talent, genius, industry and capital, was brought 
into the field of free competition. The immediate 
result was, that all those who possessed either of 
those advantages prospered as they had never 
prospered before, and rose in social position and 
intelligence. At the same time, and from the 
same causes, the aggregate wealth of society, and 
probably its aggregate intelligence, were rapidly 
increased. Such was no doubt part of the effects 
of unfettering the limbs, the minds and consciences 
of men. It was the only part of those effects that 
scholars and philosophers saw or heeded. Here 
was something new under the sun, which refuted 
and rebuked the wisdom of Solomon. Up to this 
time, one-half of mankind had been little better 
than chattels belonging to the other half. A cen- 
tral power, with branches radiating throughout 
the civilized world, had trammeled men's con- 
sciences, dictated their religious faith, and pre- 
scribed the forms and modes of worship. All this 
was done away with, and the new world just 
started into existence was certainly making rapid 
progress, and seemed to the ordinary observer 



FREE TRADE. 9 

to be very happy. About such a world, nothing 
was to be found in books. Its social, its indus- 
trial and its moral phenomena, seemed to be as 
beautiful as they were novel. They needed, how- 
ever, description, classification and arrangement. 
Men's social relations and moral duties were 
quite different under a system of universal lib- 
erty and equality of rights, from what they had 
been in a state of subordination and dependence 
on the one side, and of power, authority and 
protection on the other. The reciprocal duties 
and obligations of master and slave, of lord and 
vassal, of priest and layman, to each other, were 
altogether unlike those that should be practiced 
between the free and equal citizens of regene- 
rated society. Men needed a moral guide, a new 
philosophy of ethics ; for neither the sages of the 
Gentiles, nor the Apostles of Christianity, had 
foreseen or provided for the great light which 
was now to burst upon the world. Moses, and 
Solomon, and Paul, were silent as Socrates, Plato 
and Aristotle, as to this social Millenium, and the 
moral duties and obligations it would bring in its 
train. 

Until now, industry had been controlled and 
directed by a few minds. Monopoly in its every 
form had been rife. Men were suddenly called 
on to walk alone, to act and work for themselves 
without guide, advice or control from superior 



10 FREE TRADE. 

authority. In the past, nothing like it had oc- 
curred ; hence no assistance could be derived from 
books. The prophets themselves had overlooked 
or omitted to tell of the advent of this golden 
era, and were no better guides than the historians 
and philosophers. A philosophy that should guide 
and direct industry "was equally needed with a 
philosophy of morals. The occasion found and 
made the man. For writing a one-sided philos- 
ophy, no man was better fitted than Adam Smith. 
He possessed extraordinary powers of abstraction, 
analysis and generalization. He was absent, se- 
cluded and unobservant. He saw only that pros- 
perous and progressive portion of society whom 
liberty or free competition benefitted, and mistook 
its effects on them for its effects on the world. 
He had probably never heard the old English 
adage, " Every man for himself, and Devil take 
the hindmost. " This saying comprehends the 
whole philoscphy, moral and economical, of the 
" Wealth of Nations." But he and the political 
economists who have succeeded him, seem never 
to have dreamed that there would have been any 
" hindmost." There can never be a wise moral 
philosopher, or a sound philosophy, till some one 
arises who sees and comprehends all the "things 
in heaven and earth." Philosophers are the most 
abstracted, secluded, and least observant of men. 
Their premises are always false, because they see 



FREE TRADE. 11 

but few facts; and hence their conclusions must 
also be false. Plato and Aristotle have to-day 
as many believers as Smith, Paley or Locke, and 
between their times a hundred systems have arisen, 
flourished for a time, and been rejected. There 
is not a true moral philosophy, and from the na- 
ture of things there never can be. Such a phi- 
losophy has to discover first causes and ultimate 
effects, to grasp infinitude, to deal with eternity 
at both ends. Human presumption will often at- 
tempt this, but human intellect can never achieve 
it. We shall build up no system, attempt to 
account for nothing, but simply point out what 
is natural and universal, and humbly try to jus- 
tify the ways of God to man. 

Adam Smith's philosophy is simple and com- 
prehensive, (teres et rotundus.) Its leading and 
almost its only doctrine is, that individual well- 
being and social and national wealth and pros- 
perity will be best promoted by each man's eagerly 
pursuing his own selfish welfare unfettered and 
unrestricted by legal regulations, or governmental 
prohibitions, farther than such regulations may be 
necessary to prevent positive crime. That some 
qualifications of this doctrine will not be found 
in his book, we shall not deny ; but this is his 
system. It is obvious enough that such a gov- 
ernmental policy as this doctrine would result in, 
would stimulate energy, excite invention and in- 



12 FREE TRADE. 

dustry, and bring into livelier action, genius, skill 
and talent. It had done so before Smith wrote, 
and it was no doubt the observation of those 
effects that suggested the theory. His friends 
and acquaintances were of that class, who, in the 
war of the wits to which free competition invited, 
were sure to come off victors. His country, too, 
England and Scotland, in the arts of trade and 
in manufacturing skill, was an over-match for 
the rest of the world. International free trade 
would benefit his country as much as social free 
trade would benefit his friends. This was his 
world, and had it been the only world his phi- 
losophy would have been true. But there was 
another and much larger world, whose misfor- 
tunes, under his system, were to make the for- 
tunes of his friends and his country. A part of 
that world, far more numerous than his friends 
and acquaintance was at his door, they were the 
unemployed poor, the weak in mind or body, 
the simple and unsuspicious, the prodigal, the dis- 
sipated, the improvident and the vicious. Lais- 
sez-faire and pas trop goitverner suited not them; 
one portion of them needed support and protec- 
tion; the other, much and rigorous government. 
Still they were fine subjects out of which the 
astute and designing, the provident and avari- 
cious, the cunning, the prudent and the indus- 
trious might make fortunes in the field of free 



FREE TRADE. 13 

competition. Another portion of the world which 
Smith overlooked, were the countries with which 
England traded, covering a space many hundred 
times larger than England herself. She was daily- 
growing richer,, more powerful and intellectual, 
by her trade, and the countries with which she 
traded poorer, weaker, and more ignorant. Since 
the vast extension of trade, consequent on the 
discoveries of Columbus and Vasco de Gama, the 
civilized countries of Europe which carried on 
this trade had greatly prospered, but the savages 
and barbarians with whom they traded had be- 
come more savage and barbarous or been exter- 
minated. Trade is a war of the wits, in which 
the stronger witted are as sure to succeed as the 
stronger armed in a war with swords. Strength 
of wit has this great advantage over strength of 
arm, that it never tires, for it gathers new 
strength by appropriating to itself the spoils of 
the vanquished. And thus, whether between na- 
tions or individuals, the war of free trade is con- 
stantly widening the relative abilities of the weak 
and the strong. It has been justly observed that 
under this system the rich are continually grow- 
ing richer and the poor poorer. The remark is 
true as well between nations as between individ- 
uals. Free trade, when the American gives a 
bottle of whiskey to the Indian for valuable furs, 
or the Englishman exchanges with the African 



14 FREE TRADE. 

blue-beads for diamonds, gold and slaves, is a 
fair specimen of all free trade when imequals 
meet. Free trade between England and Ireland 
furnishes the latter an excellent market for her 
beef and potatoes, in exchange for English man- 
ufactures. The labor employed in manufacturing 
pays much better than that engaged in rearing 
beeves and potatoes. On the average, one hour 
of English labor pays for two of Irish. Again, 
manufacturing requires and encourages skill and 
intelligence ; grazing and farming require none. 
But far the -worst evils of this free trade remain 
to be told. Irish pursuits depressing education 
and refinement, England becomes a market for 
the wealth, the intellect, the talent, energy and 
enterprise of Ireland. All men possessing any of 
these advantages or qualities retreat to England 
to spend their incomes, to enter the church, the 
navy, or the army, to distinguish themselves as 
authors, to engage in mechanic or manufacturing 
pursuits. Thus is Ireland robbed of her very 
life's blood, and thus do our Northern States rob 
the Southern. 

Under the system of free trade a fertile soil, 
with good rivers and roads as outlets, becomes 
the greatest evil with which a country can be 
afflicted. The richness of soil invites to agricul- 
culture, and the roads and rivers carry off the 
crops, to be exchanged for the manufactures of 



FREE TRADE. 15 

poorer regions, where are situated the centres of 
trade, of capital and manufactures. In a few 
centuries or less time the consumption abroad of 
the crops impoverishes the soil where they are 
made. No cities or manufactories arise in the 
country with this fertile soil, because there is no 
occasion. No pursuits are carried on requiring 
intelligence or skill; the population is of neces- 
sity sparse, ignorant and illiterate ; universal ab- 
senteeism prevails ; the rich go off for pleasure 
and education, the enterprising poor for employ- 
ment. An intelligent friend suggests that, left 
to nature, the evil will cure itself. So it may 
when the country is ruined, if the people, like 
those of Georgia, are of high character, and be- 
take themselves to other pursuits than mere agri- 
culture, and totally repudiate free trade doctrines. 
Our friends' objection only proves the truth of 
our theory. We are very sure that the wit of 
man can devise no means so effectual to impov- 
erish a country as exclusive agriculture. The 
ravages of war, pestilence and famine are soon 
effaced; centuries are required to restore an ex- 
hausted soil. The more rapidly money is made 
in such a country, enjoying free trade, the faster 
it is impoverished, for the draft on the soil is 
greater, and those who make good crops spend 
them abroad ; those who make small ones, at 
home. In the absence of free trade, this rich 



16 FREE TRADE. 

region must manufacture for itself, build cities, 
erect schools and colleges, and carry on all the 
pursuits and provide for all the common wants 
of civilized man. Thus the money made at home 
would be spent and invested at home; the crops 
would be consumed at home, and each town and 
village would furnish manure to fertilize the soil 
around it. We believe it is a common theory 
that, without this domestic consumption, no soil 
can be kept permanently rich. A dense popu- 
lation would arise, because it would be required ; 
the rich would have no further occasion to leave 
home for pleasure, nor the poor for employment. 
The valley of the Great Salt Lake is cut off 
by mountains from the rest of the world, except 
for travel. Suppose it to continue so cut off, and 
to be settled by a virtuous, enlightened people. 
Every trade, every art, every science, must be 
taught and practiced within a small compass and 
by a small population, in order to gratify their 
wants and their tastes. The highest, most dif- 
fused and intense civilization, with great accumu- 
lation of wealth, would be the necessary result. 
But let a river like the Mississippi pass through 
it. Let its inhabitants become merely agricultural, 
and exchange their products for the manufac- 
tures of Europe and the fruits of Asia, and would 
not that civilization soon disappear, and with it 



FREE TRADE. 17 

the wealth and capital of the country? Mere 
agriculture requires no skill or education, few 
and cheap houses, and no permanent outlay of 
capital in the construction of the thousand edi- 
fices needed in a manufacturing country. Be- 
sides, the consumption of the crops abroad would 
be cheating their lands of that manure which na- 
ture intended for them. Soon the rich and en- 
lightened, who owned property there, would, like 
Irish landlords, live and spend their incomes 
elsewhere. 

The profits of exclusive agriculture are not more 
than one-third of those realized from commerce 
and manufactures. The ordinary and average 
wages of laborers employed in manufactures and 
mechanic trades are about double those of agri- 
cultural laborers ; but, moreover, women and chil- 
dren get good wages in manufacturing countries, 
whose labor is lost in agricultural ones. But 
this consideration, great as it is, shrinks to in- 
significance compared with the intellectual supe- 
riority of all other pursuits over agriculture. 

The centralizing effects of free trade alone 
would be sufficient to condemn it. The decline 
of civilization under the Roman Empire was 
owing solely to centralization. If political sci- 
ence has at all advanced since the earliest an- 
nals of history, that advance is the discovery, 
that each small section knows best its own inter- 



18 FREE TRADE. 

ests, and should be endowed with the most of 
the functions of government. The ancients, in 
the days of Herodotus, when the country around 
the Levant and the Islands in the Mediterranean 
were cut up into hundreds of little highly en- 
lightened independent States, seem to have under- 
stood the evils of centralization quite as well as 
the moderns. At least their practice was wiser 
than ours, whatever may have been their theory. 
Political independence is not worth a fig without 
commercial independence. The tribute which the 
centres of trade, of capital, and of mechanical 
and artistic skill, such as England and the North 
exact from the nations they trade with, is more 
onerous and more destructive of civilization than 
that exacted from conquered provinces. Its ef- 
fects everywhere are too obvious to need the 
citation of proofs and instances. Social central- 
ization arises from the laissez-faire system just 
as national centralization. A few individuals pos- 
sessed of capital and cunning acquire a power to 
employ the laboring class on such terms as they 
please, and they seldom fail to use that power. 
Hence, the numbers and destitution of the poor 
in free society are daily increasing, the numbers 
of the middle or independent class diminishing, 
and the few rich men growing hourly richer. 

Free trade occasions a vast and useless, pro- 
bably a very noxious waste of capital and labor, 



FREE TRADE. 19 

in exchanging the productions of different and 
distant climes and regions. Furs and oils are 
not needed at the South, and the fruits of the 
tropics are tasteless and insipid at the North. 
Providence has wonderfully adapted the produc- 
tions of each section to the wants of man and 
other animals inhabiting those sections. It is 
probable, if the subject were scientifically inves- 
tigated, it would be found that the productions 
of one clime when used in another are injurious 
and deleterious. The intercourse of travel and 
the interchange of ideas it occasions advances 
civilization. The intercourse of trade, by accus- 
toming barbarous, savage and agricultural coun- 
tries to depend daily more and more on the cen- 
tres of trade and manufactures for their supplies 
of every thing requiring skill or science for its 
production, rapidly depresses civilization. On the 
whole subject of civilization there is a prevalent 
error. Man's necessities civilize him, or rather 
the labor, invention and ingenuity needed to sup- 
ply them. Relieve him of the necessity to exert 
those qualities by supplying through trade or 
other means his wants, and he at once begins 
to sink into barbarism. Wars are fine civilizers, 
for all men dread violent death ; hence, among 
barbarians, the implements of warfare are far su- 
perior to any other of their manufactures, but 
they lead the way to other improvements. The 



20 FREE TRADE. 

old adage, that ;; necessity is the mother of in- 
vention." contains our theory: for invention alone 
begets civilization. Civilization is no foreign hot- 
bed exotic brought from distant climes, but a 
hardv plant of indigenous birth and growth. 
There never was yet found a nation of white 
savages ; their wants and their wits combine to 
elevate them above the savage state. Xature, 
that imposed more wants on them, has kindly 
endowed them with superior intelligence to sup- 
ply those wants. 

Political economy is quite as objectionable, 
viewed as a rule of morals, as when viewed as a 
system of economy. Its authors never seem to 
be aware that thev are writing an ethical as well 
as an economical code ; yet it is probable that 
no writings, since the promulgation of the Chris- 
tian dispensation, have exercised so controlling 
an influence on human conduct as the writings 
of these authors. The morality which they teach 
is one, of simple and unadulterated selfishness. 
The public good, the welfare of society, the pros- 
perity of one's neighbors, is, according to them, 
best promoted by each man's looking solely to the 
advancement of his own pecuniary interests. 
They maintain that national wealth, happiness 
and prosperity being but the aggregate of indi- 
vidual wealth, happiness and prosperity, if each 
man pursues exclusively his own selfish good, he 



FREE TRADE. 21 

is doing the most he can to promote the gen- 
eral good. They seem to forget that men eager 
in the pursuit of wealth are never satisfied with 
the fair earnings of their own bodily labor, but 
find their wits and cunning employed in over- 
reaching others much more profitable than their 
hands. Laissez-faire, free competition begets a 
war of the wits, which these economists encour- 
age, quite s as destructive to the weak, simple and 
guileless, as the war of the sword. 

In a book on society, evincing much power 
and originality of thought, by Stephen Pearl 
Andrews, this subject is well handled. We an- 
nex a short extract : "It follows, from what 
has been said, that the value principle is the 
commercial embodiment of the essential element 
of conquest and war — war transferred from the 
battle-field to the counter — none the less opposed, 
however, to the spirit of christian morality, or 
the sentiment of human brotherhood. In bodily 
conflict, the physically strong conquer and sub- 
ject the physically weak. In the conflict of trade, 
the intellectually astute and powerful conquer 
and subject those who are intellectually feeble, 
or whose intellectual development is not of the 
precise kind to fit them for the conflict of wits 
in the matter of trade. With the progress of 
civilization and development, we have ceased to 
think that superior strength gives the right of 



22 FREE TRADE. 

conquest and subjugation. We have graduated 
in idea out of the period of physical dominion. 
We remain, however, as yet, in the period of 
intellectual conquest or plunder. It has not been 
questioned hitherto, as a general proposition, that 
the man who has superior intellectual endow- 
ments to others, has a right resulting therefrom 
to profit thereby at the cost of others. In the 
extreme applications of the admission only is the 
conclusion denied. (That is, as he had before 
said, 'You must not be too bad.' 'Don't gouge 
too deep.') In the whole field of what are de- 
nominated the legitimate operations of trade, 
there is no other law recognized than the rela- 
tive 'smartness' or shrewdness of the parties, 
modified at most by the sentimental precept sta- 
ted above." 

It begets another war in the bosom of society 
still more terrible than this. It arrays capital 
against labor. Every man is taught by political 
economy that it is meritorious to make the best 
bargains one can. In all old countries, labor is 
superabundant, employers less numerous than la- 
borers ; yet all - the laborers must live by the 
wages they receive from the capitalists. The 
capitalist cheapens their wages; they compete 
with and underbid each other, for employed they 
must be on any terms. This war of the rich 
with the poor and the poor with one another, is 



FREE TRADE. 23 

the morality which political economy inculcates. 
It is the only morality, save the Bible, recog- 
nized or acknowledged in free society, and is far 
more efficacious in directing worldly men's con- 
duct than the Bible, for that teaches self-denial, 
not self-indulgence and aggrandizement. This 
process of underbidding each other by the poor, 
which universal liberty necessarily brings about, 
has well been compared by the author of Alton 
Locke to the prisoners in the Black Hole of 
Calcutta strangling one another. A beautiful 
system of ethics this, that places all mankind 
in antagonistic positions, and puts all society at 
war. What can such a war result in but the op- 
pression and ultimate extermination of the weak? 
In such society the astute capitalist, who is very 
skilful and cunning, gets the advantage of every 
one with whom he competes or deals ; the sen- 
sible man with moderate means gets the advan- 
tage of most with whom he has business, but 
the mass of the simple and poor are outwitted 
and cheated by everybody. 

Woman fares worst when thrown into this war- 
fare of competition. The delicacy of her sex 
and her nature prevents her exercising those 
coarse arts which men do in the vulgar and pro- 
miscuous jostle of life, and she is reduced to the 
necessity of getting less than half price for her 
work. To the eternal disgrace of human nature, 



24 TREE TRADE. 

the men who employ her value themselves on the 
Adam Smith principle for their virtuous and sen- 
sible conduct. "Labor is worth what it will 
bring; they have given the poor woman more 
than any one else would, or she would not have 
taken the work." Yet she and her children are 
starving, and the employer is growing rich by 
giving her half what her work is worth. Thus 
does free competition, the creature of free so- 
ciety, throw the whole burden of the social fabric 
on the poor, the weak and ignorant. They pro- 
duce every thing and enjoy nothing. They are 
"the muzzled ox that treadeth out the straw." 
In free society none but the selfish virtues are 
in repute, because none other help a man in the 
race of competition. In such society virtue loses 
all her loveliness, because of her selfish aims. 
Good men and bad men have the same end in view : 
self-promotion, self-elevation. The good man is 
prudent, cautious, and cunning of fence ; he knows 
well, the arts (the virtues, if you please) which 
enable him to advance his fortunes at the ex- 
pense of those with whom he deals ; he does not 
"cut too deep"; he does not cheat and swindle, 
he only makes good bargains and excellent profits. 
He gets more subjects by this course ; everybody 
comes to him to be bled. He bides his time ; 
takes advantage of the follies, the improvidence 
and vices of others, and makes his fortune out 



FREE TRADE. 25 

of the follies and weaknesses of his fellow-nien. 
The bad man is rash, hasty, unskilful and im- 
politic. He is equally selfish, but not half so 
prudent and cunning. Selfishness is almost the 
only motive of human conduct in free society, 
where every man is taught that it is his first 
duty to change and better his pecuniary situation. 
The first principles of the science of political 
economy inculcate separate, individual action, and 
are calculated to prevent that association of labor 
without which nothing great can be achieved ; for 
man isolated and individualized is the most help- 
less of animals. We think this error of the econ- 
omists proceeded from their adopting Locke's 
theory of the social contract. We believe no her- 
esy in moral science has been more pregnant of 
mischief than this theory of Locke. .It lies at 
the bottom of all moral speculations, and if false, 
must infect with falsehood all theories built on it. 
Some animals are by nature gregarious and asso- 
ciative. Of this class are men, ants and bees. 
An isolated man is almost as helpless and ridic- 
ulous as a bee getting up for himself. Man is 
born a member of society, and does not form 
society. Nature, as in the cases of bees and ants, 
"has it ready formed for him. He and society 
are congenital. Society is the being — he one of 
the members of that being. He has no rights 
whatever, as opposed to the interests of society; 

B 



26 FREE TRADE. 

and that society may very properly make any 
use of him that will redound to the public good. 
Whatever rights he has are subordinate to the 
good of the whole ; and he has never ceded rights 
to it, for he was born its slave, and had no rights 
to cede. 

Government is the creature of society, and may 
be said to derive its powers from the consent of 
the governed; but society does not owe its sove- 
reign power to the separate consent, volition or 
agreement of its members. Like the hive, it is 
as much the work of nature as the individuals 
who compose it. Consequences, the very opposite 
of the doctrine of free trade, result from this doc- 
trine of ours. It makes each society a band of 
brothers, working for the common good, instead 
of a bag of cats biting and worrying each other. 
The competitive system is a system of antagonism 
and war; ours of peace and fraternity. The first 
is the system of free society ; the other that of 
slave society. The Greek, the Roman, Judaistic, 
Egyptian, and all ancient polities, were founded 
on our theory. The loftiest pairician in those 
days, valued himself not on selfish, cold individ- 
uality, but on being the most devoted servant of 
society and his country. In ancient times, the 
individual was considered nothing, the State every 
thing. And yet, under this system, the noblest 
individuality was evolved that the world has ever 



FREE TRADE. 27 

seen. The prevalence of the doctrines of polit- 
ical economy has injured Southern character, 
for in the South those doctrines most prevail. 
Wealthy men, who are patterns of virtue in the 
discharge of their domestic duties, value them- 
selves on never intermeddling in public matters. 
They forget that property is a mere creature of 
law and society, and are willing to make no re- 
turn for that property to the public, which by 
its laws gave it to them, and which guard and 
protect them in its possession. 

All great enterprises owe their success to asso- 
ciation of capital and labor. The North is in- 
debted for its great wealth and prosperity to the 
readiness with which it forms associations for all 
industrial and commercial purposes. The success 
of Southern farming is a striking instance of the 
value of the association of capital and laborers, 
and ought to suggest to the South the necessity 
of it for other purposes. 

The dissociation of labor and disintegration of 
society, which liberty and free competition occa- 
sion, is especially injurious to the poorer class ; 
for besides the labor necessary to support the 
family, the poor man is burdened with the care 
of finding a home, and procuring employment, 
and attending to ail domestic wants and concerns. 
Slavery relieves our slaves of these cares alto- 
gether, and slavery is a form, and the very best 



28 FREE TRADE. 

form, of socialism^ In fact, the ordinary wages 
of common labor are insufficient to keep up sep- 
arate domestic establishments for each of the poor, 
and association or starvation is in many cases 
inevitable. In free society, as well in Europe 
as in America, this is the accepted theory, and 
various schemes have been resorted to, all without 
success, to cure the evil. The association of labor 
properly carried out under a common head or 
ruler, would render labor more efficient, relieve 
the laborer of many of the cares of household 
affairs, and protect and support him in sickness 
and old age, besides preventing the too great 
reduction of wages by redundancy of labor and 
free competition. Slavery attains all these results. 
What else will ? 

We find in the days of Sir Matthew Hale, a 
very singular pamphlet attributed to him. It was 
an attempt to prove that two healthy laborers, 
marrying and having in the usual time four chil- 
dren, could not at ordinary labor, and with ordi- 
nary wages, support their family. The nursing, 
washing, cooking and making clothes, would fully 
occupy the wife. The husband, with the chances 
of sickness and uncertainty of employment, would 
have to support four. Such is the usual and 
normal condition of free laborers. With six chil- 
dren, the oldest say twelve years of age, their 
condition would be worse. Or should the husband 



FREE TRADE. 29 

die, the family that remained would be still worse 
off. There are large numbers of aged and infirm 
male and female laborers ; so that as a class, it 
is obvious, we think, that under ordinary circum- 
stances, in old countries, they are incapable of 
procuring a decent and comfortable support. The 
wages of the poor diminish as their wants and 
families increase, for the care and labor of at- 
tending to the family leaves them fewer hours for 
profitable work. With negro slaves, their wages 
invariably increase with their wants. The master 
increases the provision for the family as the family 
increases in number and helplessness. It is a 
beautiful example of communism, where each one 
receives not according to his labor, but according 
to his wants. 

A maxim well calculated not only to retard the 
progress of civilization, but to occasion its retro- 
gression, has grown out of the science of political 
economy. "The world is too n.uch governed," has 
become quite an axiom with many politicians. 
Now the need of law and government is just in 
proportion to man's wealth and enlightenment. 
Barbarians and savages need and will submit to 
but few and simple laws, and little of government. 
The love of personal liberty and freedom from all 
restraint, are distinguishing traits of wild men and 
wild beasts. Our Anglo-Saxon ancestors loved 
personal liberty because they were barbarians, but 



30 FREE TRADE. 

they did not love it half so much as North Amer- 
ican Indians or Bengal tigers, because they were 
not half so savage. As civilization advances, lib- 
erty recedes : and it is fortunate for man that 
he loses his love of liberty just as fast as he be- 
comes more moral and intellectual. The wealthy, 
virtuous and religious citizens of large towns enjoy 
less of liberty than any other persons whatever, 
and yet they are the most useful and rationally 
happy of all mankind. The best governed coun- 
tries, and those which have prospered most, have 
always been distinguished for the number and 
stringency of their laws. Good men obey supe- 
rior authority, the laws of Gocl, of morality, and 
of their country ; bad men love liberty and vio- 
late them. It would be difficult very often for 
the most ingenious casuist to distinguish between 
sin and liberty ; for virtue consists in the per- 
formance of duty, and the obedience to that law 
or power that imposes duty, whilst sin is but the 
violation of duty and disobedience to such law 
and power. It is remarkable, in this connec- 
tion, that sin began by the desire for liberty and 
the attempt to attain it in the person of Satan 
and his fallen angels. The world wants good go- 
vernment and a plenty of it — not liberty. It is 
deceptive in us to boast of our Democracy, to 
assert the capacity of the people for self-govern- 
ment, and then refuse to them its exercise. In 



FREE TRADE. 31 

New England, and in all our large cities, where 
the people govern most, they are governed best. 
If government be not too much centralized, there 
is little danger of too much government. The 
danger and evil with us is of too little. Carlyle 
says of our institutions, that they are u anarchy 
plus a street constable." We ought not to be 
bandaged up too closely in our infancy, it might 
prevent growth and development; but the time 
is coming when we shall need more of govern- 
ment, if we would secure the permanency of our 
institutions. 

All men concur in the opinion that some gov- 
ernment is necessary. Even the political econo- 
mist would punish murder, theft, robbery, gross 
swindling, &c; but they encourage men to com- 
pete with and slowly undermine and destroy one 
another by means quite as effective as those they 
forbid. We have heard a distinguished member 
of this school object to negro slavery, because 
the protection it afforded to an inferior race 
would perpetuate that race, which, if left free to 
compete with the whites, must be starved out in 
a few generations. Members of Congress, of the 
Young American party, boast that the Anglo- 
Saxon race is manifestly destined to eat out all 
other races, as the wire-grass destroys and takes 
the place of other grasses. Nay, they allege this 
competitive process is going on throughout all 



32 FREE TRADE. 

nature ; the weak are everywhere devouring the 
strong ; the hardier plants and animals destroy- 
ing the weaker, and the superior races of man 
exterminating the inferior. They would chal- 
lenge our admiration for this war of nature, by 
which they say Providence is perfecting its own 
work — getting rid of what is weak and indiffer- 
ent, and preserving only what is strong and 
hardy. We see the war, but not the improve- 
ment. This competitive, destructive system has 
been going on from the earliest records of his- 
tory ; and yet the plants, the animals, and the 
men of to-day are not , superior to those of four 
thousand years ago. To restrict this destructive, 
competitive propensity, man was endowed with 
reason, and enabled to pass laws to protect the 
weak against the strong. To encourage it, is to 
encourage the strong to oppress the weak, and 
to violate the primary object of all government. 
It is strange it should have entered the head of 
any philosopher to set the weak, who are the 
majority of mankind, to competing, contending 
and fighting with the strong, in order to improve 
their condition. 

Hobbes maintains that "a state of nature is a 
state of war." This is untrue of a state of na- 
ture, because men are naturally associative; but 
it is true of a .civilized state of universal liberty, 
and free competition, such as Hobbes saw around 



FREE TRADE. 33 

him, and which no doubt suggested his theory. 
The wants of man and his history alike prove 
that slavery has always been part of his social 
organization. A less degree of subjection is in- 
adequate for the government and protection of 
great numbers of human beings. 

An intelligent English writer, describing society 
as he saw it, uses this language : 

"There is no disguising from the cool eye of 
philosophy, that all living creatures exist in a 
state of natural warfare ; and that man (in hos- 
tility with all) is at enmity also with his own 
species ; man is the natural enemy of man ; and 
society, unable to change his nature, succeeds but 
in establishing a hollow truce by which fraud is 
substituted for violence." 

Such is free society, fairly portrayed; such are 
the infidel doctrines of political economy, when 
candidly avowed. Slavery and Christianity bring 
about a lasting peace, not "a hollow truce.^ But 
v/e mount a step higher. We deny that there 
is a society in free countries. They who act 
each for himself, who are hostile, antagonistic 
and competitive, are not social and do not con- 
stitute a society. -^We use the term free society, 
for want of a better ; but, like the term free 
government, it is an absurdity : those who are 
governed are not free — those who are free are 
not social y 



CHAPTER II. 

FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY AND RISE OF SOCIALISM. 

The phenomena presented by the vassals and 
villiens of Europe after their liberation, were the 
opposite of those exhibited by the wealthy and 
powerful classes. Pauperism^and beggary, we are 
informed by English historians, were unknown till 
the villiens began to"" escape from their masters, 
and attempted to practise a predatory and no- 
madic liberty. A liberty, we should infer from 
the descriptions we can get of it, very much like 
that of t domestic animals that have gone wild — 
the difference in favor of the animals being that 
natureiiad made provision for them, but had made 
none for the villiens. The new freemen were 
bands of thieves and beggars, infesting the country 
and disturbing' ; its peace. Their physical ^condi- 
tion was worse than when under the rule of the 
Barons, their masters, and their moral condition 
worse also, for liberty^; had made^them from ne- 
cessity thieves and murderers. It was necessary 
to retain them in slavery, not only to support and 
sustain them and to prevent general mendicity, 
but equally necessary in order to govern them 
and prevent crime. The advocates of universal 



FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY, &C. 35 

liberty concede that the laboring class enjoy 
more material comfort, are better fed, clothed 
and housed, as slaves, than as freemen. The sta- 
tistics of crime demonstrate that the moral su- 
periority of the slave over the free laborer is 
still greater than his superiority in animal well- 
being. There never can be among slaves a class 
so degraded as is found about the wharves and 
suburbs of cities. The master requires and en- 
forces ordinary morality and industry. We very 
much fear, if it were possible to indite a faith- 
ful comparison of the conduct and comfort of our 
free negroes with that of the runaway Anglo- 
Saxon serfs, that it would be found that the ne- 
groes have fared better and committed much less 
crime than the whites. But those days, the 14th 
and 15th centuries, were the halcyon days of 
vagabond liberty. The few that had escaped from 
bondage found a wide field and plenty of sub- 
jects for the practice of theft and mendicity. 
There was no law and no police adequate to 
restrain them, for until then their masters had 
kept them in order better than laws ever can. 
But those glorious old times have long since 
passed. A bloody code, a standing army and 
efficient police keep them quiet enough now. 
Their numbers have multiplied a hundred fold, 
but their poverty has increased faster than their 
numbers. Instead of stealing and begging, and 



36 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY 

living idly in the open air, they work fourteen 
hours a day, cooped up in close rooms, with foul 
air, foul water, and insufficient and filthy food, 
and often sleep at night crowded in cellars or 
in garrets, without regard to sex. 

In proceeding to prove that this is a correct 
account of the effects in England of liberating the 
laboring class, we are at much difficulty how to se- 
lect from the mass of testimony that at every turn 
presents itself to us. We are not aware that any 
one disputes the fact that crime and pauperism 
throughout Western Europe increased pari passu 
with liberty, equality and free competition. We 
know of but a single respectable authority that 
disputes the fact that this increase is directly at- 
tributable to free competition or liberty. Even the 
Edinburgh Review, hitherto the great champion 
of political economy and free competition, has 
been silent on the subject for several years. With 
strange inconsistency, the very men who assert 
that universal liberty has, and must ever, from 
the nature of things, increase crim.e, mendicity 
and pauperism among the laboring class, main- 
tain that slavery degrades this very class whom 
it preserves from poverty and crime. The ele- 
vation of the scaffold is the only moral or physi- 
cal elevation that they can point to which dis- 
tinguishes the condition of the free laborer from 
his servile ancestor. The peasantry of England, 



AND RISE OF SOCIALISM. 37 

in the days of Cressey, Agincourt and Shrews- 
bury, when feudalism prevailed, were generally 
brave, virtuous, and in the enjoyment of a high 
degree of physical comfort— at least, that com- 
fort differed very little from that of their lords 
and masters. This same peasantry, when Charles 
Edward with three thousand Highlanders invaded 
England, had become freemen and cowards. Starv- 
ing Frenchmen will at least fight, but starving 
Chartists only bluster. How slavery could de- 
grade men lower than universal liberty has done, 

' it is hard to conceive ; how it did and would 
again preserve them from such degradation, is well 
explained by those who are loudest in its abuse, 

/A. consciousness of security, a full comprehen- 
sion of his position, and a confidence in that po- 
sition, and the absence of all corroding cares and 
anxieties, makes the slave easy and self-assured 
in his address, cheerful, happy and contented, 
free from jealousy, malignity, and envy, and at 
peace with all around him,/ His attachment to 
his master begets the sentiment of loyalty, than 
which none more purifies and elevates human na- 
ture. This theory of the moral influences of 
slavery is suggested and in part borrowed from 
Alexandre Dumas' " French Milliner." He, de- 
scended from a negro slave, and we may pre- 
sume prejudiced against slavery, speaks in glow- 
ing terms of its happy iufluence on the lives and 



38 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY 

manners of the Russian serfs. He draws a con- 
trast between their cheerfulness and the wretch- 
edness of the French laboring class, and attri- 
butes solely to the feeling of security which 
slavery induces, their enviable cheerfulness. 

The free laborer rarely has a house and home 
of his own ; he is insecure of employment ; sick- 
ness may overtake him at any time and deprive 
him of the means of support ; old age is certain 
to overtake him, if he lives, and generally finds 
him without the means of subsistence ; his family 
is probably increasing in numbers, and is help- 
less and burdensome to him. In all this there 
is little to incite to virtue, much to tempt to 
crime, nothing to afford happiness, but quite 
enough to inflict misery. Man must be more 
than human, to acquire a pure and a high mo- 
rality under such circumstances. 

In free society the sentiments, principles, feel- 
ings and affections of high and low, rich and 
poor, are equally blunted and debased by the 
continual war of competition. It begets rival- 
ries, jealousies and hatreds on all hands. The 
poor can neither love nor respect the rich, who, 
instead of aiding and protecting them, are en- 
deavoring to cheapen their labor and take away 
their means of subsistence. The rich can hardly 
respect themselves, when they reflect that wealth 
is the result of avarice, caution, circumspection 



AND RISE OF SOCIALISM. 39 

and hard dealing. These are the virtues which 
free society in its regular operation brings forth. 
Its moral influence is therefore no better on the 
rich than on the poor. The number of laborers 
being excessive in all old countries, they are con- 
tinually struggling with, scandalizing and under- 
bidding each other, to get places and employ- 
ment. Every circumstance in the poor man's sit- 
uation in free society is one of harassing care, 
of grievous temptation, and of excitement to an- 
ger, envy, jealousy and malignity. That so many 
of the poor should nevertheless be good and pure, 
kind, happy and high-minded, is proof enough 
that the poor class is not the -worst class in so- 
ciety. But the rich have their temptations, too. 
Capital gives them the power to oppress ; selfish- 
ness offers the inducement, and political economy, 
the moral guide of the day, would justify the 
oppression. Yet there are thousands of noble 
and generous and disinterested men in free so- 
ciety, who employ their wealth to relieve, and not 
to oppress the poor. Still these are exceptions 
to the general rule. The effect of such society 
is to encourage the oppression of the poor. 

The ink was hardly dry with which Adam Smith 
wrote his Wealth of Nations, lauding the benign 
influences of free society, ere the hunger and 
want and nakedness of that society engendered a 
revolutionary explosion that shook the world to 



40 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY 

its centre. The starving artisans and laborers, 
and fish-women and needle-women of Paris, were 
the authors of the first French revolution, and 
that revolution was everywhere welcomed, and 
spread from nation to nation like fire in the 
prairies. The French armies met with but a for- 
mal opposition, until they reached Russia. There, 
men had homes and houses and a country to fight 
for. The serfs of Russia, the undisciplined Cos- 
sacks, fought for lares and penates, their homes, 
their country, and their God, and annihilated an 
army more numerous than that of Xerxes, and 
braver and better appointed than the tenth legion 
of Caesar. What should Western European poor 
men fight for ? All the world was the same to 
them. They had been set free to starve, with- 
out a place to rest their dying heads or to inter 
their dead bodies. Any change they thought 
would be for the better, and hailed Buonaparte 
as a deliverer. But the nature of the evil was 
not understood; there were some remnants of feu- 
dalism, some vigor in the Catholic church ; these 
Buonaparte swept away, and left the poor with- 
out a stay or a hope. Buonaparte is conquered 
and banished, universal peace restored; commerce, 
mechanic arts, manufactures and agriculture re- 
vive and flourish ; invention is stimulated, indus- 
try urged on to its utmost exertion. Never 
seemed the world so prosperous, so happy, so 



AND RISE OF SOCIALISM. 41 

progressive. But only seemed ! Those awful sta- 
tistics unfold the sad tale that misery and crime 
and poverty are on the increase still. The pris- 
ons are filled, the poor houses and the penal 
colonies supplied too fast, and the gallows ever 
pendant with its subject. In 1830, Paris starves 
again, builds barricades, continues hungry, and 
hesitates what next to do. Finally sets up a 
new king, no better than the one she has ex- 
pelled. Revolution follows revolution with elec- 
tric speed throughout great part of Western Eu- 
rope. Kings are deposed, governments changed; 
soon new kings put in their places, and things 
subside — not quietly — into the status quo ante 
helium. All this, while millions of the poor are 
fleeing from Europe as men fly from an infected 
plague spot, to seek their fortunes in other climes 
and regions. Another eighteen years of hunger, 
of crime, of riots, strikes, and trades unions, 
passes over free society. In 1848 the drama of 
1830 is almost literally re-enacted. Again Paris 
starves, builds barricades, and expels her king. 
Again Western Europe follows her example. By 
this time, however, men had discovered that po- 
litical changes would not cure the diseases of 
society. The poor must have bread; government 
must furnish it. Liberty without bread was not 
worth fighting for. A Republic is set up in 
Paris that promises employment and good wages 



42 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY 

to every body. The experiment is tried and fails 
in a week. No employment, except transplant- 
ing trees and levelling mounds, could be found, 
and the treasury breaks. After struggling and 
blundering and staggering on through various 
changes, Louis Napoleon is made Emperor. He 
is a socialist, and socialism is the new fashion- 
able name of slavery. He understands the dis- 
ease of society, and has nerve enough for any 
surgical operation that may be required to cure 
it. His first step in socialism was to take the 
money of the rich to buy wheat for all. The 
measure was well-timed, necessary and just. He 
is now building houses on the social plan for 
working men, and his Queen is providing nurse- 
ries and nurses for the children of the working 
women, just as we Southerners do for our negro 
women and children. It is a great economy. 
Fourier suggested it long after Southerners had 
practiced it. During these times there was a 
little episode in Ireland — Ireland, the freest coun- 
try in the world, where law is violated every 
day, mocked at and derided, whence the rich 
and the noble have emigrated, where all are poor, 
all equal, and all idle. A few thousands only 
had usually starved annually ; but the potatoe 
crop failed ; they had no feudal lords to buy 
other food for them, and three hundred thou- 
sand starved in a single season. No slave or 



AND RISE OF SOCIALISM. 43 

serf ever did starve, unless lie were a runaway. 
Irishmen, although they love liberty to distrac- 
tion, have lost their taste for starving. They are 
coming en masse to America, and in a few years, 
at the present rate of emigration, will leave the 
island without inhabitants. The great and in- 
creasing emigration from free society in Europe 
can only be accounted for on the ground that 
they believe their social system so rotten that 
no mere political change can help them — for a 
political revolution can be had on twenty-four 
hours' notice. 

The Chartists and Radicals of England would 
in some way subvert and re-construct society. 
They complain of free competition as a crying 
evil, and may be classed with the Socialists. The 
high conservative party called Young England 
vainly endeavors, by preaching fine sentiments, to 
produce that good feeling between the rich and 
the poor, the weak and the powerful, which slavery 
alone can bring about. Liberty places those classes 
in positions of antagonism and war. Slavery iden- 
tifies the interests of rich and poor, master and 
slave, and begets domestic affection on the one 
side, and loyalty and respect on the other. Young 
England sees clearly enough the character of the 
disease, but is not bold enough to propose an 
adequate remedy. The poor themselves are all 
practical Socialists, and in some degree pro-slavery 



44 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY 

men. They unite in strikes and trades unions, 
and thus exchange a part of their liberties in 
order to secure high and uniform wages. The 
exchange is a prudent and sensible one ; but they 
who have bartered off liberty, are fast verging 
towards slavery. Slavery to an association is not 
always better than slavery to a single master. 
The professed object is to avoid ruinous under- 
bidding and competition with one another ; but 
this competition can never cease whilst liberty 
lasts. Those who wish to be free must take lib- 
erty with this inseparable burden. Odd-Fellows' 
societies, temperance societies, and all other soci- 
ties that provide for sick and unfortunate mem- 
bers, are instances of Socialism. The muse in 
England for many years has been busy in com- 
posing dissonant laborer songs, bewailing the hard- 
ships, penury and sufferings of the poor, and in- 
dignantly rebuking the cruelty and injustice of 
their hard-hearted and close-fisted employers. 

Dickens and Bulwer denounce the frame-work of 
society quite as loudly as Carlyle and Newman; 
the two latter of whom propose slavery as a remedy 
for existing evils. A large portion of the clergy 
are professed Socialists, and there is scarcely a 
literary man in England who is not ready to pro- 
pose radical and organic changes in her social 
system. Germany is full of Communists ; social 
discontent is universal, and her people are leaving 



AND RISE OF SOCIALISM. 45 

en masse for America — liopeless of any ameliora- 
tion at home for the future. Strange to tell, in 
the free States of America too, Socialism and 
every other heresy that can be invoked to make 
war on existing institutions, prevail to an alarming 
extent. Even according to our own theory of 
the necessity of slavery, we should not suppose 
that that necessity would be so soon felt in a 
new and sparsely-settled country, where the supply 
of labor does not exceed the demand. But it. is 
probable the constant arrival of emigrants makes 
the situation of the laborer at the North as pre- 
carious as in Europe, and produces a desire for 
some change that shall secure him employment 
and support at all times. Slavery alone can effect 
that change ; and towards slavery the North and 
all Western Europe are unconsciously marching. 
The master evil they all complain of is free 
competition — which is another name for liberty. 
Let them remove that evil, and they will find 
themselves slaves, with ail the advantages and 
disadvantages of slavery. They will have attained 
association of labor, for slavery produces asso- 
ciation of labor, and is one of the ends all Com- 
munists and Socialists desire. A well-conducted 
farm in the South is a model of associated labor 
that Fourier might envy. One old woman nurses 
all the children whilst the mothers are at work ; 
another waits on the sick,Mn a house set aside 



46 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY 

for them. Another washes and cooks, and a 
fourth makes and mends the clothing. It is a 
great economy of labor, and is a good idea of 
the Socialists. Slavery protects the infants, the 
aged and the sick ; nay, takes far better care of 
them than of the healthy, the middle-aged and the 
strong. They are part of the family, and self- 
interest and domestic affection combine to shelter, 
shield and foster them. A man loves not only 
his horses and his cattle, which are useful to him, 
but he loves his dog, which is of no use. He 
loves them because they are his. What a wise 
and beneficent provision of Heaven, that makes 
the selfishness of man's nature a protecting aegis 
to shield and defend wife and children, slaves and 
even dumb animals. The Socialists propose to 
reach this result too, but they never can if they 
refuse to march in the only road Providence has 
pointed out. Who will check, govern and control 
their superintending authority ? Who prevent his 
abuse of power ? Who can make him kind, tender 
and affectionate, to the poor, aged, helpless, sick 
and unfortunate ? Qui custodial custodies ? Na- 
ture establishes the only safe and reliable checks 
and balances in government. Alton Locke de- 
scribes an English farm, where the cattle, the 
horses and the sheep are fat, plentifully fed and 
warmly housed ; the game in the preserves and 
the fish in the pond carefully provided for ; and 



AND HISE OF SOCIALISM. 47 

two freezing, shivering, starving, half-clad boys, 
who have to work on the Sabbath, are the slaves 
to these animals, and are vainly endeavoring to 
prepare their food. Now it must have occurred 
to the author that if the boys had belonged to the 
owner of the farm, they too would have been 
well-treated, happy and contented. This farm is 
but a miniature of all England ; every animal is 
well-treated and provided for, except the laboring 
man. He is the slave of the brutes, the slave 
of society, produces everything and enjoys no- 
thing. Make him the slave of one man, instead 
of the slave of society, and he would be far better 
off. None but lawyers and historians are aware 
how much of truth, justice and good sense, there 
is in the notions of the Communists, as to the 
community of property. Laying no stress on the 
too abstract proposition that Providence gave the 
world not to one man, or set of men, but to all 
mankind, it is a fact that all governments, in 
civilized countries, recognize the obligation to 
support the poor, and thus, in some degree, make 
all property a common possession. The poor laws 
and poor houses of England are founded on com- 
munistic principles. Each parish is compelled to 
support its own poor. In Ireland, this obligation 
weighs so heavily as in many instances to make 
farms valueless ; the poor rates exceeding the 
rents. But it is domestic slavery alone that can 



48 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY 

establish a safe, efficient and humane community 
of property. It did so in ancient times, it did 
so in feudal times, and does so now, in Eastern 
Europe, Asia and America. /-'Slaves never die of 
hunger ; seldom suffer want. Hence Chinese sell 
themselves when they can do no better. A South- 
ern farm is a sort of joint stock concern, or social 
phalastery, in which the master furnishes the cap- 
ital and skill, and the slaves the labor, and divide 
the profits, not according to each one's in-put, 
but according to each one's wants and necessities. 

Socialism proposes to do away with free com- 
petition ; to afford protection and support at all 
times to the laboring class ; to bring about, at 
least, a qualified community of property, and to 
associate labor. All these purposes, slavery fully 
and perfectly attains. 

To prove the evil effects, moral, social and eco- 
nomic, of the emancipation of feudal slaves or 
villiens, and how those evil effects gave birth to 
Socialism, we quote first from the Pictorial His- 
tory of England : 

" To the period (loth century,) immediately 
preceding the present, belongs the origin of Eng- 
lish pauperism, as well as of the legislation on the 
subject of the poor. So long as the system of 
villienage was maintained in its integrity, there 
could be no paupers in the land ; that is to say, 
no persons left destitute of the means of subsist- 



AXD RISE OF SOCIALISM. 49 

ence, except beggary or public alms. The prin- 
ciple of that institution was, that every individual 
who had nothing else, had at least a right of food 
and shelter from the landed proprietor whose 
bondsman he was. The master was not more en- 
titled to the services of his villien, than the villien 
was to the maintenance of himself and his family, 
at the expense of his master. This has of abso- 
lute necessity been the law in every country in 
which slavery has existed. * * * * But as 
soon as the original slavery of the English la- 
boring population begun to be exchanged for free- 
dom, and villienage gradually, and at last gene- 
rally passed away in the manner stated in the 
last book, the working man, now his own master, 
was of course left in all circumstances to his own 
resources ; and when either want of employment, 
or sickness, or the helplessness of old age came 
upon him, if he had not saved something from his 
former earnings, and had no one to take care of 
him from motives of affection or compassion, his 
condition was as unprovided for as that of the 
fowls of the heavens. But men will not starve, 
whilst they can either beg or steal ; hence, the 
first appearance that the destitute poor, as a class 
of the community, make in our annals, is in the 
character of thieves and mendicants, sometimes 
enforcing their demands by threats or violence."— 
Vol. 2d, pages 262, 263. 
c 



50 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY 

Such, is the description of free society at its 
birth, by authors who hate and denounce slavery. 
We will proceed to prove from like authority, 
that the number of mendicants and thieves has 
increased with accelerating speed from that day 
to this. 

We find in Hume's History of England, treating 
of the discontents of the people in the reign of 
Edward VI., the following language : 

" There is no abuse in civil society so great 
as not to be attended with a variety of beneficial 
consequences ; and in the beginnings of reforma- 
tion, the loss of these advantages is always felt 
very sensibly, while the benefit resulting from the 
change is the slow effect of time, and is seldom 
perceived by the bulk of the nation. Scarce any 
institution can be imagined less favorable in the 
main to the interests of mankind, than that of 
monks and friars ; yet was it followed by many 
good effects, which having ceased by the sup- 
pression of the monasteries, were much regretted 
by the people of England. The monks always 
residing in their convents in the centre of their 
estates, spent their money in the provinces, and 
among their tenants, afforded a ready market for 
commodities, and were a sure resource to the poor 
and indigent ; and though their hospitality and 
charity gave too much encouragement to idleness, 
and prevented the increase of public riches, yet 



AND RISE OF SOCIALISM. 51 

did it provide to many a relief from the extreme 
pressure of want and necessity. " 

In the Pictorial History of England, under the 
head of the Condition of the People, about the 
16th and 17th centuries, we find crime and pau- 
perism still on the increase, and hundreds of es- 
says and books written and many acts of Par- 
liament passed on this perplexing and growing 
evil in free society. But it was after Napoleon 
had made a dead level of Western European so- 
ciety, a sort of "tabula raza," by destroying the 
remnants of feudalism and crippling and cramping 
the Catholic Church, that liberty and free com- 
petition were first given free scope and elbow- 
room. Not till then had the doctrines, that 
" might makes right" and " every man for him- 
self, and devil take the hindmost," been brought 
into full play. The natural consequence was, that 
the strong conquered and devoured the weak much 
faster than they had ever done before. The world 
of the political economists, the rich, the astute, 
the avaricious, the prudent, the circumspect and 
hard-hearted, started forward with railroad speed 
and railroad recklessness. The world of the So- 
cialists, (vastly increased in numbers,) the poor, 
the weak, ignorant, generous and improvident, 
ran backwards quite as fast as the other world 
went forward. Almost every middle-aged man 
who can read a newspaper, is aware, that whilst 



52 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY 

the aggregate wealth of civilized mankind has 
increased more rapidly since the fall of Napoleon 
than it ever did before, and whilst the discoveries 
and inventions in physical science have rapidly 
lessened the amount of labor necessary to procure 
human subsistence and comfort, yet these advan- 
tages have been monopolized by the few, and the 
laboring millions are in worse condition (in free 
society) than they ever were before. On this sub- 
ject we shall quote from two able articles in Black- 
wood, not because our ppsitions need proof, but 
because these quotations will throw much light 
on the character of the disease under which free 
society is suffering, and show that protection of 
some kind is imperiously demanded to shield the 
masses from the grinding oppression of universal 
liberty, free competition and laissez-faire, and to 
show that it is the carrying into practical opera- 
tion the theories of the political economists, or 
free trade men, that has occasioned the unexam- 
pled progress and prosperity of the few who are 
strong, and the appalling and increasing crime and 
destitution of the many, who are weak. Further, 
these quotations will sustain and illustrate our 
doctrine that the political economists have taken 
partial views of society, and have mistaken the 
good luck and success of their friends for the 
general condition and fortune of mankind. Black- 
wood seems to contemplate protection against for- 



AND RISE OF SOCIALISM. 



58 



eign competition as an adequate remedy. We 
leave it to the intelligent reader to say, whether 
protection against social and domestic competition 
is not quite as necessary — and nothing but slavery 
can afford this latter protection. 

In a review of Alton Locke in Blackwood, Nov. 
No. 1850, the following passages will be found : 

"No man with a human heart in his bosom, 
unless that heart is utterly indurated and depraved 
by the influence of mammon, can be indifferent to 
the fate of the working classes. Even if he were 
not urged to consider the awful social questions 
which daily demand our attention in this per- 
plexing and bewildered age, by the impulses of 
humanity or by the call of Christian duty, the 
lower motive of interest alone should incline him 
to serious reflection on a subject which involves 
the well-being, both temporal and eternal, of thou- 
sands of his fellow-beings, and possibly the per- 
manence of order and tranquility in this realm 
of Great Britain. Our civil history during the 
last thirty years of peace, resembles nothing which 
the world has vet seen or which can be found 
in the records of civilization. The progress which 
has been made in the mechanical sciences is of 
itself a 1 most equivalent to a revolution. The whole 
face of society has been altered ; old employments 
have become obsolete, old customs have been al- 
tered or remodelled, and old institutions have 



54 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY 

undergone innovation. The modern citizen thinks 
and acts differently from his fathers. What to 
them was object of reverence, is to him subject 
. of ridicule ; what they were accustomed to prize 
and honor, he regards with undisguised contempt. 
All this we call improvement, taking no heed 
the while whether such improvement has fulfilled 
the primary condition of contributing to and in- 
creasing the welfare and prosperity of the people. 
Statistical books are written to, prove how enor- 
mously we have increased in wealth ; and yet, side 
by side with Mr. Porter's bulky tome, . you will 
find pamphlets containing ample and distinct evi- 
dence that hundreds of thousands of our indus- 
trious fellow-countrymen are at this moment fam- 
ishing for lack of employment, or compelled to 
sell their labor for such wretched compensation, 
that the pauper's dole is by many regarded with 
absolute envy. Dives and Lazarus elbow one 
another in the street, and our 'political economists 
select Dives as the sole type of the nation. San- 
itary commissioners are appointed to whiten the 
outside of the sepulchre ; and during the operation 
their stomachs are made sick by the taint of the rot- 
tenness within. The reform of Parliament is, com- 
paratively speaking, a matter of yesterday ; and 
yet the operatives are petitioning for the charter ! 
These are stern realities, grave facts, which it 
is impossible to gainsay. What may be the re- 



AND RISE OF SOCIALISM. 55 

suit of them, unless some adequate remedy can 
be provided, it is impossible with certainty to 
predict; but unless we are prepared to deny the 
doctrine of that retribution which has been di- 
rectly revealed to us from above, and of which 
the history of neighboring states affords us so 
many striking examples, w r e can hardly expect to 
remain unpunished for what is truly a national 
crime. The offence, indeed, according to all the 
elements of human calculation, is likely to bring 
its own punishment. It cannot be that society 
can exist in tranquility, or order be permanently 
maintained, so long as a large portion of the 
working classes, of the hard-handed men whose 
industry makes capital move and multiply itself, 
are exposed to the operation of a system that 
makes their position less tolerable than that of 
Egyptian bondsmen. To work is not only a 
duty, but a privilege ; but to work against hope, 
to toil under the absolute pressure of despair, is 
the most miserable lot that the imagination can 
possibly conceive. It is, in fact, a virtual abro- 
gation of that freedom which every Briton is 
taught to consider his birthright, but which now, 
however well it may sound as an abstract term, 
is practically, in the case of thousands, placed 
utterly beyond their reach. 

We shall not probably be suspected of any in- 
tention to inculcate radical doctrines. We have 



56 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY 

no sympathy, but the reverse, with the quacks, 
visionaries and agitators, who make a livelihood 
by preaching disaffection in our towns and cities, 
and who are the worst enemies of the people 
whose cause they pretend to advocate.* We de- 
test the selfish views of the Manchester school 
of politicians, and Ave loathe that hypocrisy which, 
under the pretext of reforming, would destroy 
the institutions of the country. But, if it be 
true, as we believe it to be, that the working 
and producing classes of the community are suf- 
fering unexampled hardship, and that not of a 
temporary and exceptional kind, but from the 
operation of some vicious and baneful element 
that has crept into our social system, it then be- 
comes our duty to attempt to discover the actual 
nature of the evil ; and, having discovered that, 
to consider seriously what cure it is possible to 
apply." * * * "Here is a question urgently 
presenting itself to the consideration of all think- 
ing men ; a question which concerns the welfare of 
hundreds of thousands ; a question which has been 
evaded by statesmen so long as they dared to do 
so with impunity ; but which now can be no longer 
evaded : that question being, whether any possi- 
ble means can be found for ameliorating and im- 
proving the condition of the working classes of 
Great Britain, by rescuing them from the cruel 
effects of that competition which makes each man 



AND RISE OF SOCIALISM. 57 

the enemy of his fellow ; which is annually dri- 
ving from our shores crowds of our best and 
most industrious artisans; ivhich consigns women 
from absolute indigence to infamy ; dries up the 
most sacred springs of affection in the heart; 
crams the jail and the poor-house; and is eat- 
ing like a fatal canker into the very heart-blood 
of society'' This subject was deemed by Black- 
wood so important, that it was resumed in a 
subsequent number of that review, "The Dan- 
gers of the Country," March number, 1851. We 
will not fatigue the reader's attention with ex- 
tracts from that article, which is a most able and 
interesting one ; but will merely state that, after 
giving tedious and careful statistics, showing the 
rapid and unexampled increase of crime and pau- 
perism in Great Britain since 1819, a period in 
which the prosperity of the upper classes was as 
remarkable as the continually increasing debase- 
ment and misery of the lower, the Reviewer con- 
eludes with these emphatic words: "But this we 
do say, and with these words we nail our colors 
to the mast, Protection must be restored, or 
the British Empire will be dissolved." Now 
the evil complained of is free competition, and 
nothing short of some modification of slavery can 
give protection against free competition. To leave 
no room for cavil or doubt as to the truth of 
our positions, that pauperism commenced and crime 



58 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY 

was increased with the birth of the liberty of the 
laboring class, and that each extension of liberty 
has immediately occasioned an accelerated in- 
crease of poverty and crime, we wish to adduce 
authorities, not only of the highest character, but 
representing all parties and shades of opinion. 
We now quote from the April number, 1854, of the 
Westminster Review on " The Results of the Cen- 
sus." After treating of the breaking up of the 
feudal system and dissolution of the Catholic 
church, the writer thus proceeds : " These inter- 
ests having gone down and another class having 
arisen, is there any other to be considered ? Yes, 
an enormous one — an appalling one — the pauper 
interest. Long before the dissolution of the mo- 
nasteries, the pauperism of the country had be- 
come an almost unmanageable evil. It began with 
the abolition of serfage ; and the monasteries ab- 
sorbed as much as they could of an existing evil, 
increasing it all the while. From the fourteenth 
century there had been laws to restrain vagrancy; 
and in the sixteenth it had increased 'to the mar- 
vellous disturbance of the common weal of this 
realm.' Beggars went about, ' valiant and sturdy/ 
in great 'routs and companies.' The vagrants 
were to be put in prison, branded and whipped ; 
the clergy were to press all good citizens to give 
alms; and all who were able must find employ- 
ment for those who could work. Then came the 



AND RISE OF SOCIALISM. 59 

compulsory tax : and then the celebrated 43d Eli- 
zabeth; and all apparently in vain. The lower 
class had not risen, generally speaking, with the 
middle; and there was as wide an interval between 
that middle class and the pauper banditti of the 
realm, as there once was between the landed class 
and the serfs." Pauper banditti! And this is 
what two hundred years of liberty makes of white 
laborers. And now four hundred years have 
passed over, and their condition is getting daily 
worse ; they are quitting their homes — no, not 
homes, for they have none — but flying from the 
land that has persecuted them to every wild and 
desert corner of the earth. 

The cotemporaneous appearance of Alton Locke 
and a vast number of pamphlets and essays on 
the subject of the sufferings and crimes of the la- 
boring class in Great Britain, forms a most inter- 
esting epoch in the history of social science. No 
one who pays the least attention to the subject, 
will doubt that the doctrines and philosophy of 
socialism or communism, w T hich just then became 
rife in England, owed their birth to the increased 
and increasing sufferings of the poor, which that 
philosophy proposes to remove. The Edinburgh 
Review, in its January number, 1851, discourses 
as follows: "As long as socialism w^as confined 
to the turbulent, the wild and the disreputable, 
and was associated with tenets which made it 



60 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY 

disgusting and disreputable, perhaps the wisest 
plan was to pass it over in silence, and suffer it 
to die of its own inherent weakness. But now, 
when it has appeared in a soberer guise and puri- 
fied from much of its evil intermixtures ; when it 
has shown itself an actual and energetic reality 
in France; when it has spread among the intel- 
ligent portions of the working classes in our own 
country more extensively than is commonly be- 
lieved ; when it raises its head under various 
modifications, and often as it were unconsciously, 
in the disquisitions which issue from the periodi- 
cal press; when a weekly journal, conducted with 
great ability as to every thing but logic, is de- 
voted to its propagation ; and when clergymen of 
high literary reputation give in their scarcely 
qualified adherence, and are actively engaged in 
reducing to practice their own peculiar modifica- 
tion of the theory, it would be no longer kindly 
or decorous to ignore a subject which is so deeply 
interesting to thousands of our countrymen." In 
speaking of the doctrines of the socialists, the 
writer goes on to say : " The position they take 
is this: Society is altogether out of joint. Its 
anomalies, its disfigured aspect, its glaring ine- 
qualities, the sufferings of the most numerous por- 
tions of it, are monstrous, indefensible, and yearly 
increasing. Mere palliations, mere sham improve- 
ments, mere gradual ameliorations will not meet 



AND RISE OF SOCIALISM. 61 

its wants ; it must be remodelled, not merely fur- 
bished up. Political economy has hitherto had it 
all its own way; and the shocking condition into 
which it has brought us, shews that its principles 
must be strangely inadequate or unsound. The 
miseries of the great mass of the people, the in- 
ability to find work, or to obtain in return for 
such work as can be performed in reasonable time 
and by ordinary strength a sufficiency of the com- 
forts and necessaries of life, may all be traced 
to one source — competition instead of combina- 
tion. The antagonistic and regenerative principle 
which must be introduced, is association." No as- 
sociation, no efficient combination of labor can be 
effected till men give up their liberty of action 
and subject themselves to a common despotic head 
or ruler. This is slavery, and towards this so- 
cialism is moving. The above quotation and the 
succeeding one go to prove the positions with 
which we set out : that free trade or political 
economy is the science of free society, and so- 
cialism the science of slavery. The writer from 
whom we are quoting sees and thus exposes the 
tendency of socialism to slavery : " The/e is the 
usual jumble between the fourteenth century and 
the nineteenth ; the desire to recall the time when 
the poor were at once the serfs and the proteges 
of the rich, and to amalgamate it with the days 
of chartism, when the poor assert their equality 



62 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY 

and insist upon their freedom. It is not thus 
that irritation can be allayed or miseries removed 
or wrongs redressed. The working classes and 
their advocates must decide on which of the two 
positions they will take their stand : whether they 
will be cared for as dependents and inferiors, or 
whether, by wisdom, self-control, frugality and toil, 
they will fight their independent way to dignity 
and well-being ; whether they will step back to 
a stationary and degraded past, or strive onward 
to the assertion of their free humanity? But it 
is not given to them, any more than to other 
classes, to combine inconsistent advantages : they 
cannot unite the safety of being in leading strings, 
with the liberty of being without them ; the right 
of acting for themselves, with the right to be saved 
from the consequences of their actions ; they must 
not whine because the higher classes do not aid 
them, and refuse to let these classes direct them ; 
they must not insist on the duty of government 
to provide for them, and deny the authority of 
government to control them ; they must not de- 
nounce laissez-faire, and denounce a paternal des- 
potism likewise." The greatest of all commun- 
ists, if communist he be, Proudhon, has also seen 
and exposed this tendency of socialism to slavery. 
He is a thorough-H-oiiis; enemy of modern free so- 

coo */ 

ciety; calls property a thief; and would, he says, 
establish anarchy in place of government. But 



AND RISE OF SOCIALISM. 63 

we have not been able to understand his system, 
if any he has. 

The North British Review stands probably as 
high for its ability, sound political views and lite- 
rary integrity, as any other periodical whatever. 
TTe will cite copiously from its article on " Litera- 
ture and the Labor Question," February No. 1851, 
not merely for the weight of its authority and the 
force of its arguments, but chiefly because the 
writer of that article sums up with some fulness 
and great ability the proofs of the failure of so- 
ciety as now constituted in Western Europe, and 
of the almost universal abandonment of political 
economy, the philosophy of that society : 

" Servants of this class, and constituting by far 
the most numerous portion of every community, 
are the prolStaires, or speaking more restrictedly, 
the working men, who earn to-day's bread by to- 
day's labor. Th&y are the veritable descendants 
of those who in ancient times w r ere the slaves ; 
with but few r differences their social position is the 
same. Despite saving banks, temperance socie- 
ties, and institutions for mutual improvement, the 
characteristics of this class, like that of the lit- 
erary class, is, and probably ever will be, pecu- 
niary insouciance. From week to week, these 
thousands live, now in work and now out of work, 
as careless of to-morrow as if Benjamin Franklin 
had never lived, entering at one end of the jour- 



64 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY 

ney of existence and issuing at the other, without 
ever having at any one moment accumulated five 
superfluous shillings." 

A beautiful commentary on the dignity of labor. 

As to the prevalence of discontent with free 
society, and of socialistic and revolutionary doc- 
trines in France, the writer employs the following 
language : 

" One cannot now take up a French book-seller's 
list of advertisements, without seeing the titles of 
publications of all kinds and sizes devoted to the 
elucidation of social questions. c L'Organization 
du Travail;' 'Destinie Sociale ;' 'Etudes sur la 
principales causes cle la Misere;' 'De la condition 
physique and morale des jeune Ouvriens.' Such 
are some of the titles of a class of French books 
sufficient already to form a library. The thing, in 
fact, has become a profession in France. Men of 
all kinds and of all capacities — men who do not 
care one farthing about the condition of the people, 
or about the condition of any body except them- 
selves, as well as men of real goodness and phi- 
lanthropy, now write books full of statistics about 
the working classes, and of plans for diminishing 
the -amount of social evil. And so too in this 
country. The ' Condition of England Question' 
has become the target at which every shallow wit- 
ling must aim his shaft. All literature seems to be 
flowing towards this channel, so that there seems 



AND EISE OF SOCIALISM. 65 

to be a likelihood that we shall soon have no lite- 
rature at all but a literature of social reference." 

Whilst all this hubbub and confusion is going 
on in France and England, occasioned by the in- 
tensest suffering of the free laborers, we of the 
South and of all slaveholding countries, have been 
" calm as a summer's evening," quite unconscious 
of the storm brewing around us. Yet those people 
who confess that their situation is desperate, insist 
that we shall imitate their institutions, starve our 
laborers, multiply crime, riots and pauperism, in 
order, we suppose, to try the experiment of Mor- 
monism, Socialism or Communism. Try it first, 
yourselves ! 

The following passage— and we have quoted a 
similar one from Blackwood — is a distinct assertion 
of the complete failure of free society. It is the 
admission of witnesses of the highest character, 
corroborated by the testimony of all classes of so- 
ciety — for the poor, by their strikes, trade unions, 
temperance societies, odd-fellow societies, and in- 
surance societies, speak as eloquently on this sub- 
ject as the rich and the learned. 

" ' Alton Locke' is, upon the whole, as powerful 
a literary expression as exists of the general con- 
viction, shared by all classes alike, that the country 
has arrived at a condition when something extra- 
ordinary, whatever it is, must be decided on and 
done, if society is to be saved in Great Britain. 



66 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY 

As such, therefore, it is a book that should be 
welcome to all parties." 

Now listen to the conclusion, and see whether 
the practical remedy proposed be not Slavery, 
We believe there is not an intelligent reformist 
in the world who does not see the necessity of 
slavery — who does not advocate its re-institution 
in all save the name. Every one of them con- 
curs in deprecating free competition, and in the 
wish and purpose to destroy it. To destroy it 
is to destroy Liberty, and where liberty is de- 
stroyed, slavery is established. 

" At what conclusion have we arrived ? We 
have pointed out as one of the most remarkable 
signs of the times, the appearance of a literature 
of social reference, originating in and then farther 
promoting a repprocherfient between the two ex- 
tremes of society, men of letters and the working 
classes. We have examined, and to . some extent 
analyzed, the two most conspicuous examples that 
have been recently furnished in this country, of 
this new direction and intention of literature. 
And what has been the result ? The result has 
been, that in both cases, we have found ourselves 
conducted by the writers in question to one point : 
the pronunciation of the terrible phrase, i Organi- 
zation of Labor,' and the contemplation of a pos- 
sible exodus, at no very distant period, out of 
the Egypt of our present system, of competition 



AND RISE OF SOCIALISM. 67 

and laissez-faire, into a comparative Canaan of 
some kind of co-operative socialism. Such is the 
fact : startling it may be, but deserving to be 
fairly stated and apprehended. Right or wrong, 
we believe this to be a true version and fair his- 
tory of our current social literature. We have 
elicited it from an examination of but two exam- 
ples ; but we believe the most extensive examina- 
tion would not invalidate it. Collect all the books, 
pamphlets and papers that constitute our literature 
of social reference, or assemble all our men of 
letters, who have contributed to that literature, 
so as to learn their private aspirations and opin- 
ions with respect to the social problem, and the 
last word, the united note would still be : l The 
Organization of Labor on the associative prin- 
ciple.' There are of course dissentients, but such 
is the note of the majority; and so far as the 
note is of value, it may be asserted that a decree 
of the literary faculty of the country has gone 
forth, declaring the avater of political economy, 
if not as a science of facts, at least as a supreme 
rule of government, to be near its close." 

Now strip these and the extracts from Black- 
wood of their pompous verbiage, and they become 
express assertions that free society has failed, and 
that that which is not free must be substituted. 
Every Southern slave has an estate in tail, inde- 
feasible by fine and recovery, in the lands of the 



68 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY 

South. If his present master cannot support him, 
he must sell him to one who can. Slaves, too, 
have a valuable property in their masters. Abo- 
litionists overlook this — overlook the protective in- 
fluence of slavery, its distinguishing feature, and 
no doubt the cause of its origin and continuance, 
and abuse it as a mere engine of oppression. In- 
fant negroes, sick, helpless, aged and infirm ne- 
gres, are simply a charge to their master ; he has 
no property in them in the common sense of the 
term, for they are of no value for the time, but 
they have the most invaluable property in him. 
He is bound to support them, to supply all their 
wants, and relieve them of all care for the present 
or future. And well, and feelingly and faithfully 
does he discharge his duty. What a glorious thing 
to man is slavery, when want, misfortune, old age, 
debility and sickness overtake him. Free society, 
in its various forms of insurance, in its odd-fellow 
and temperance societies, in its social and com- 
munistic establishments, and in ten thousand other 
ways, is vainly attempting to attain this never- 
failing protective, care-taking and supporting fea- 
ture of slavery. But it will blunder and flounder 
on in vain. It cannot put a heart and feeling into 
its societies and its corporations. God makes mas- 
ters and gives them affections, feelings and inte- 
rests that secure kindness to the sick, aged and 
dying slave. Man can never inspire his ricketty 



AND RISE OF SOCIALISM. 69 

institutions with those feelings, interests and affec- 
tions. Say the Abolitionists — " Man ought not to 
have property in man." What a dreary, cold, 
bleak, inhospitable world this would be with such' 
a doctrine carried into practice. Men living to 
themselves, like owls and wolves and lions and 
birds and beasts of prey ? ho : " Love thy neigh- 
bor as thyself." And this can't be done till he 
has a property in your services as well as a place 
in your heart. Homo sum, humani nihil a me 
acienum puto! This, the noblest sentiment ever 
uttered by uninspired man, recognises the great 
truth which lies at the foundation of all society — 
that every man has property in his fellow-man ! 
It is because that adequate provision is not made 
properly to enforce this great truth in free society, 
that men are driven to the necessity of attempting 
to remedy the defects of government by voluntary 
assocations, that carry into definite and practical 
operation this great and glorious truth. It is be- 
cause such defects do not exist in slave society, 
that we are not troubled with strikes, trade unions, 
phalasteries, communistic establishments, Mormon- 
ism, and the thousand other isms that deface and 
deform free society. Socialism, in some form or 
other, is universal in free society, and its single 
aim is to attain the protective influence of slavery. 
St. Simon would govern his social establishments 
by savants, more despotic than masters. He w T ould 



70 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY 

have no law but the will of the savant. He would 
have a despot without the feelings and the inte- 
rests of a master to temper his authority. Fourier 
proposes some wild plan of passional attraction as 
a substitute for government, and Louis Blanc is 
eloquent about "attractive labor." All human ex- 
perience proves that society must be ruled not by 
mere abstractions, but bv men of flesh and blood. 
To attain large industrial results, it must be vigor- 
ously and severely ruled. Socialism is already 
slavery in all save the master. It had as well 
adopt that feature at once, as come to that it must 
to make its schemes at once humane and efficient. 
Socialism in other forms than that of slavery is 
not a new thing. It existed in Crete, in Sparta, 
in Peru, and was practiced by the Essenes in 
Judea. All ancient institutions were very much 
tinged with its doctrines and practices, not only in 
the relation of master and slave, which was uni- 
versal, but in the connection of the free citizens 
to one another and to the government. The doc- 
trines of individuality, of the social contract and 
of laissez-faire , had not then arisen. Our only 
quarrel with Socialism is, that it will not honestly 
admit that it owes its recent revival to the failure 
of universal liberty, and is seeking to bring about 
slavery again in some form. 

The little experiment of universal liberty that 
has been tried for a little while in a little corner 



AND RISE OF SOCIALISM. 71 

of Europe, has resulted in disastrous and appalling 
failure. Slavery has been too universal not to 
he necessary to nature, and man struggles in vain 
against nature. " Expel nature with a fork, and 
she will again return;" or, in the eloquent lan- 
guage of Solomon — " The thing that hath been, 
it is that that shall be ; and that which is done, is 
that which shall be done ; and there is no new 
thing under the sun." 

No one who reads a newspaper can but have 
observed that every abolitionist is either an agra- 
rian, a socialist, an infidel, an anti-renter, or in 
some way is trying to upset other institutions of 
society, as well as slavery at the South. The 
same reasoning that makes him an abolitionist soon 
carries him further, for he finds slavery in some 
form so interwoven with the whole frame- work of 
society, that he invariably ends by proposing to 
destroy the whole edifice and building another on 
entirely new principles. Some, like Fourier, are 
honest enough to admit that it must also be built 
with new materials. There is too much human 
nature in man for their purposes. Part of that 
nature is the continual effort to make others work 
and support him whilst he is idle ; in other words, 
to enslave them, and yet not be charged with their 
support. But Fourier and his disciples promise 
most positively that their system will in a few 
generations cleanse mankind of their mundane 



72 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY, &C. 

dross, expel every particle of human nature, and 
that then their system will work admirably. Until 
then, we would advise them to procure good prac- 
tical overseers from Virginia to govern their pha- 
lanxes and phalasteries ; and we venture to affirm, 
if they try one, they will never be willing to ex- 
change him for that whip-syllabub, sentimental 
ruler, " passional attraction." Passional attraction 
is the very thing government has chiefly to check 
and punish, and we suspect it will be so to the 
end of the chapter. The argument seems fairly, 
however, to have arrived at this point : All concur 
that free society is a failure. We slaveholders say 
you must recur to domestic slavery, the oldest, the 
best and most common form of Socialism. The 
new schools of Socialism promise something better, 
but admit, to obtain that something, they must 
first destroy and eradicate man's human nature. 



CHAPTER III. 

SUBJECT CONTINUED* 

" There was a time, 
That when the brains were out, the man would die !" 

Cotemporaneously with the explosion of his fa- 
vorite theory, Mr. Calhoun folded his robe around 
him witk imperial dignity, and expired in the arms 
of an admiring Senate. Mr. Macaulay and the 
Edinburgh Review still cling to life with the quer- 
ulous pertinacity of a pair of cats. " Othello's oc- 
cupation's gone!" Why does Othello still linger 
on the stage ? 

Since writing our last chapter, the Edinburgh 
Review for July, 1854, has reached us. It con- 
tains a critique on " An Essay on the Relations 
between Labor and Capital. R. C. Morrison." 
The failure of free society we think is admitted in 
that article. We think the writer further admits 
that it cannot work successfully without a radical 
change in human nature. The remedy suggested 
is very simple ; chronic and complex as the diseases 
are which it proposes to cure, yet that remedy 
requires the poor to give up the use of stimulants. 
We do not think with Lord Byron, "that man 
being reasonable should get drunk." We think, 
on the contrary, it is the most irrational act in 

D 



74 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY 

the world. But change the line a little, and it 
is true: "Man being natural, will get drunk." 
Any theory of society founded on the disuse of 
stimulants by the poor, is Utopian and false. At 
all events, it involves the necessity of a total 
change in man's nature, for men have ever used 
stimulants, and until such change will ever use 
them. If the grog and tobacco rations were with- 
drawn, would not a smaller number of laborers do 
the work that a larger number do now, and thus 
throw a number out of employment ? When capi- 
talists discovered that laborers could live on less 
than they do now, would they not reduce their 
wages ? Would not famine be more common, when 
there was no room for retrenchment, no tobacco 
and liquor to substitute for bread, when bread rose 
in price ? Such is the theory of Smith and Mc- 
Culloch, who attribute famines in Ireland to the 
too great economy of the peasant. We think the 
proposed remedy would aggravate the disease ; but 
it suffices for our purpose, that the disease is ad- 
mitted. The failure of laissez-faire, of political 
economy, is admitted now by its last and lingering 
votary. Free society stands condemned by the 
unanimous testimony of all its enlightened mem- 
bers. We will proceed to quote from the article 
on which we are commenting : 

"A few years ago, when distress among our 
working people, if not general, was at least chronic 



AND RISE OF SOCIALISM. 75 

and severe, when the public mind was at once 
crowded by startling disclosures of misery, and 
distracted by still more startling projects for re- 
lieving it, the book before us would have excited 
immediate and extensive attention. A few years 
hence, probably, when the stirring excitement and 
the noble enterprise of war shall have again given 
place to the more beneficent pursuits of peace, and 
when possibly a check to our prosperous career, 
arising out of war, shall have again awakened our 
vigilance to those symptoms of social disorder 
which we are apt to neglect in ordinary times, the 
book may take the rank it appears to us to de- 
serve. * * * In truth, the great problem it 
proposes to discuss and elucidate is one of more 
permanent and mighty interest than any other, 
however much transient convulsions may throw it 
into the back-ground, or transient intervals of re- 
pose and comfort may lull us into the belief that 
it is solved or shelved. It is not long since public 
attention was thoroughly aroused to all that was 
deplorable, indefensible and dangerous in the con- 
dition of the mass of the population ; we were 
daily made aware, that as a fact, the supply of 
labor was usually in excess of the demand, and 
that much local and occasional suffering was the 
consequence ; but it was not till the Irish famine, 
and the similar visitation in the Western High- 
lands, the severe distresses in the manufacturing 



76 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY 

districts of England in 1847 and 1848, and the 
painful and undeniable, even though over-colored, 
revelations of the state of many thousand artisans 
of various trades in the metropolis, had alarmed 
us into inquiry and reflection, that the public mind 
began to comprehend either the magnitude and 
imminence of the evil it had to investigate, or the 
difficulty and complication of the problem it was 
called upon to solve." 

The reviewer and the reviewed very successfully 
show, after this, that a movement of the laboring 
class would be attended with more danger in Great 
Britain than any where else, because in Great 
Britain this class compose nine-tenths of the nation. 
In France, where lands are minutely divided, the 
conservative interest preponderates. There are 
thirty thousand land-holders in England, three 
thousand in Scotland, and eleven millions in France. 
The state of society in Great Britain is pregnant 
with disastrous change and revolution. Emigration 
affords a temporary vent and relief, but emigration 
may cease, and then this complex and difficult so- 
cial problem will recur. The laboring class are 
about to assume the reins of government. They 
know their own numbers and strength. All the 
reasoning in the world will not satisfy them that 
they who produce every thing should starve, in 
order that a handful of lords and capitalists should 
live in wanton w T aste and idle luxury. Mr. Mor- 



AND RISE OF SOCIALISM. 77 

rison will not persuade them that it is a high 
crime and misdemeanor for them to use a little 
beer and tobacco, for they make every ounce of 
tobacco and pint of beer that is consumed in the 
kingdom. A social revolution is at hand. Dr. 
Sangrado could not arrest it with his "bleeding 
and warm water," much less Mr. Morrison with 
his cold water remedy. The teetotalers should 
give him a brass medal, for they, like he, propose 
to remedy all the evils that human flesh is heir 
to, with abstinence and cold water. The Ho- 
meopathists will dispute with the Hydropathists the 
propriety of conferring on him an honorary title. 
His infinitesimal dose ranking him with the former, 
and its ingredient, cold water, all vine him with 
the latter practitioners. The reviewer admits that 
Great Britain is in danger of a far worse social 
revolution than ever visited France, and has no 
preventive to suggest except to stop the "grog 
ration.*' -Now, slavery is the only thing in the 
world that can enforce temperance. The army 
and navy are the only reliable temperance societies 
in Great Britain. Men who have lost self-control 
enlist in them to be controlled by superior au- 
thority. They often prolong their lives thereby. 
Slaves, like soldiers and sailors, are temperate, be- 
cause temperance is enforced on them. If free 
laborers will use too much grog and tobacco, it 
proves they are not ripe for freedom. 



78 FAILURE OF FREE SOCIETY 

But we will forego and give up every word of 
proof that we have deduced from history to shew 
the failure of free society. In the present and 
preceding chapters, we know we have adduced suf- 
ficient historical evidence of that failure, but we 
forego all that. We take a single admission of this 
reviewer — " that the supply of labor is usually in 
excess of the demand." The admission of course 
only applies to Great Britain, but it is well known 
that in free continental Europe the excess is still 
greater. Now, is it necessary for us to do more 
than state the admission to prove that free society 
is absurd and impracticable ? Part of the laboring 
class are out of employment and actually starving, 
and in their struggle to get employment, reducing 
to the minimum of what will support human ex- 
istence those next above them who are employed. 
This next and employed class are the needle-wo- 
men, and coarse and common male laborers. The 
two classes and their dependents constitute one- 
half of mankind. Theoretically, this half of man- 
kind is always at starvation point in free society. 
Practically, the proportion of the suffering desti- 
tute is much greater. We are astounded that con- 
clusions so obviously and immediately resulting 
from admitted premises, should not have occurred 
to every one, especially when horrid facts beck- 
oned the way to the conclusion. 



AND BISE OF SOCIALISM. 79 

This whole article in the Edinburgh is unfeeling 
and libellous, unjust and untrue. The greatest 
destitution and pauperism excludes the use of stim- 
ulants. The working women suffer most, and they 
use few stimulants. The starving peasantry of 
Scotland, France and Ireland, can rarely indulge 
in them. It is the well-paid laborers who, after 
the excessive fatigues of the day, indulge in the 
pipe and the bottle. Fatigued, maddened and des- 
perate with the prospect before them, some little 
charity should be extended to their feelings. Such 
wholesale abuse of the laboring class will but pre- 
cipitate the social revolution which the reviewer 
dreads. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE TWO PHILOSOPHIES. 

In the three preceding chapters we have shewn 
that the world is divided between two philosophies. 
The one the philosophy of free trade and univer- 
sal liberty — the philosophy adapted to promote the 
interests of the strong, the wealthy and the wise. 
The other, that of socialism, intended to protect 
the weak, the poor and the ignorant. The latter 
is almost universal in free society ; the former pre- 
vails in the slaveholding States of the South. 
Thus we see each section cherishing theories at 
war with existing institutions. The people of the 
North and of Europe are pro-slavery men in the 
abstract ; those of the South are theoretical abo- 
litionists. This state of opinions is readily ac- 
counted for. The people in free society feel the 
evils of universal liberty and free competition, 
and desire to get rid of those evils. They pro- 
pose a remedy, which is in fact slavery ; but 
they are wholly unconscious of what they are 
doing, because never having lived in the midst of 
slavery, they know not what slavery is. The citi- 
zens of the South, who have seen none of the 
evils of liberty and competition, but just enough of 
those agencies to operate as healthful stimulants to 



THE TWO PHILOSOPHIES. 81 

energy, enterprise and industry, believe free com- 
petition to be an unmixed good. 

The South, quiet, contented, satisfied, looks upon 
all socialists and radical reformers as madmen or 
knaves. It is as ignorant of free society as that 
society is of slavery. Each section sees one side of 
the subject alone ; each, therefore, takes partial and 
erroneous views of it. Social science will never 
take a step in advance till some Southern slave- 
holder, competent for the task, devotes a life-time 
to its study and elucidation ; for slavery can only 
be understood by living in its midst, whilst thou- 
sands of books daily exhibit the minutest work- 
ings of free society. The knowledge of the nu- 
merous theories of radical reform proposed in Eu- 
rope, and the causes that have led to their pro- 
mulgation, is of vital importance to us. Yet we 
turn away from them with disgust, as from some- 
thing unclean and vicious. We occupy high van- 
tage ground for observing, studying and classify- 
ing the various phenomena of society ; yet we do 
not profit by the advantages of our position. "We 
should do so, and indignantly hurl back upon our 
assailants the charge, that there is something 
wrong and rotten in our system. From their 
own mouths we can show free society to be a 
monstrous abortion, and slavery to be the healthy, 
beautiful and natural being which they are trying, 
unconsciously, to adopt. 



CHAPTER V. 



NEGRO SLAVERY. 



We have already stated that we should not at- 
tempt to introduce any new theories of govern- 
ment and of society, but merely try to justify old 
ones, so far as we could deduce such theories from 
ancient and almost universal practices. Now it 
has been the practice in all countries and in all 
ages, in some degree, to accommodate the amount 
and character of government control to the wants, 
intelligence, and moral capacities of the nations 
or individuals to be governed. A highly moral 
and intellectual people, like the free citizens of 
ancient Athens, are best governed by a democracy. 
For a less moral and intellectual one, a limited 
and constitutional monarchy will answer. For a 
people either very ignorant or very wicked, no- 
thing short of military despotism will suffice. So 
among individuals, the most moral and well-in- 
formed members of society require no other gov- 
ernment than law. They are capable of reading 
and understanding the law, and have sufficient self- 
control and virtuous disposition to obey it. Chil- 
dren cannot be governed by mere law; first, because 
they do not understand it, and secondly, because 



NEGRO SLAVERY. 83 

they are so much under the influence of impulse, 
passion and appetite, that they want sufficient self- 
control to be deterred or governed by the distant 
and doubtful penalties of the law. They must be 
constantly controlled by parents or guardians, 
whose will and orders shall stand in the place of 
law for them. Very wicked men must be put 
into penitentiaries ; lunatics into asylums, and the 
most wild of them into straight jackets, just as 
the most wicked of the sane are manacled with 
irons ; and idiots must have committees to govern 
and take care of them. Now, it is clear the 
Athenian democracy would not suit a negro nation, 
nor will the government of mere law suffice for 
the individual negro. He is but a grown up child, 
and must be governed as a child, not as a lunatic 
or criminal. The master occupies towards him the 
place of parent or guardian. We shall not dwell 
on this view, for no one will differ with us who 
thinks as we do of the negro's capacity, and we 
might argue till dooms-day, in vain, with those 
who have a high opinion of the negro's moral 
and intellectual capacity. 

Secondly. The negro is improvident ; w r ill not 
lay up in summer for the wants of winter ; will 
not accumulate in youth for the exigencies of age. 
He would become an insufferable burden to society. 
Society has the right to prevent this, and can 
only do so by subjecting him to domestic slavery. 



84 NEGRO SLAVERY. 

In the last place, the negro race is inferior to 
the "white race, and living in their midst, they 
■would be far outstripped or outwitted in the 
chase of free competition. Gradual but certain ex- 
termination would be their fate. We presume the 
maddest abolitionist does not think the negro's 
providence of habits and money-making capacity 
at all to compare to those of the whites. This de- 
fect of character would alone justify, enslaving him, 
if he is to remain here. In Africa or the West 
Indies, he would become idolatrous, savage and 
cannibal, or be devoured by savages and cannibals. 
At the North he would freeze or starve. 

We would remind those who deprecate and sym- 
pathize" with negro slavery, that his slavery here 
relieves him from a far mere cruel slavery in 
Africa, or from idolatry and cannibalism, and 
every brutal vice and crime that can disgrace hu- 
manity; and that it christianizes, protects, sup- 
ports and civilizes him ; that it governs him far 
better than free laborers at the North are gov- 
erned. There, wife-murder has become a mere 
holiday pastime ; and where so many wives are 
murdered, almost all must be brutally treated. 
Nay, more : men who kill their wives or treat them 
brutally, must be ready for all hinds of crime, 
and the calendar of crime at the North proves 
the inference to be correct. Negroes never kill 
their wives. If it be objected that legally they 



NEGRO SLAVERY. 85 

have no wives, then we reply, that in an experi- 
ence of more than forty years, we never yet heard 
of a negro man killing a negro woman. Our ne- 
groes are not only better off as to physical com- 
fort than free laborers, but their moral condition 
is better. 

But abolish negro slavery, and how much of 
slavery still remains. Soldiers and sailors in Eu- 
rope enlist for life ; here, for five years. Are 
they not slaves who have not only sold their liber- 
ties, but their lives also ? And they are worse 
treated than domestic slaves. 'No domestic affec- 
tion and self-interest extend their ssgis over them. 
No kind mistress, like a guardian angel, provides 
for them in health, tends them in sickness, and 
soothes their dying pillow. Wellington at Water- 
loo was a slave. He was bound to obey, or would, 
like admiral Bying, have been shot for gross mis- 
conduct, and might not, like a common laborer, 
quit his work at any moment. He had sold his 
liberty, and might not resign without the consent 
of his master, the king. The common laborer may 
quit his work at any moment, whatever his con- 
tract ; declare that liberty is an inalienable right, 
and leave his employer to redress by a useless 
suit for damages. The highest and most honor- 
able position on earth was that of the slave Wel- 
lington ; the lowest, that of the free man who 
cleaned his boots and fed his hounds. The Afri- 



86 NEGRO SLAVERY. 

can cannibal, caught, christianized and enslaved, 
is as much elevated by slavery as was Welling- 
ton. The kind of slavery is adapted to the men 
enslaved. Wives and apprentices are slaves ; not 
in theory only, but often in fact. Children are 
slaves to their parents, guardians and teachers. 
Imprisoned culprits are slaves. Lunatics and 
idiots are slaves also. Three-fourths of free so- 
ciety are slaves, no better treated, -when their 
wants and capacities are estimated, than negro 
slaves. The masters in free society, or slave so- 
ciety, if they perform properly their duties, have 
more cares and less liberty than the slaves them- 
selves. "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou earn 
thy bread!" made all men slaves, and such all 
good men continue to be. 

Negro slavery would be changed immediately 
to some form of peonage, serfdom or villien- 
age, if the negroes were sufficiently intelligent 
and provident to manage a farm. No one would 
have the labor and trouble of management, if 
his negroes would pay in hires and rents one- 
half what free tenants pay in rent in Europe. 
Every negro in the South would be soon liberated, 
if he would take liberty on the terms that white 
tenants hold it. The fact that he cannot enjoy 
liberty on such terms, seems, conclusive that he is 
only fit to be a slave. 

But for the assaults of the abolitionists, much 
would have been done ere this to regulate and 



NEGRO SLAVERY. 87 

improve Southern slavery. Our negro mechanics 
do not work so hard, have many more privileges 
and holidays, and are better fed and clothed than 
field hands, and are yet more valuable to their 
masters. The slaves of the South are cheated of 
their rights by the "purchase of Northern manufac- 
tures which they could produce. Besides, if we 
would employ our slaves in the coarser processes 
of the mechanic arts and manufactures, such as 
brick making, getting and hewing timber for ships 
and houses, iron mining and smelting, coal mining, 
grading railroads and plank roads, in the man- 
ufacture of cotton, tobacco, &c, we would find 
a vent in new employments for their increase, 
more humane and more profitable than the vent 
afforded by new states and territories. The nice 
and finishing processes of manufactures and me- 
chanics should be reserved for the whites, who 
only are fitted for them, and thus, by diversifying 
pursuits and cutting off dependence on the North, 
we might benefit and advance the interests of our 
whole population. Exclusive agriculture has de- 
pressed and impoverished the South. We will not 
here dilate on this topic, because we intend to 
make it the subject of a separate essay. Free 
trade doctrines, not slavery, have made the South 
agricultural and dependent, given her a sparse and 
ignorant population, ruined her cities, and expelled 
her people. 



85 NEGRO SLAVERY. 

Would the abolitionists approve of a system of 
society that set white children free, and remitted 
them at the age of fourteen, males and females, 
to all the rights, both as to person and .property, 
Vfhich belong to adults ? Would it be criminal or 
praiseworthy to do so? Criminal, of course. Now, 
are the average of negroes equal in information, in 
native intelligence, in prudenee or providence, to 
well-informed white children of fourteen ? We who 
have lived with them for forty years, think not. 
</£he competition of the world would be too much 
for the children. They would be cheated out of 
their- property and debased in their morals. Yet 
they would meet every where with sympathizing 
friends of their own color, ready to aid, advise 
and assist them. The negro would be exposed 
to the same competition and greater temptations, 
with no greater ability to contend with them, with 
these additional difficulties. He would be welcome 
nowhere ; meet with thousands of enemies and no 
friends. If he went North, the white laborers 
would kick him and cuff him, and drive him out of 
employment. If he went to Africa, the savages 
would cook him and eat him. If he went to the 
West Indies, they would not let him in, or if they 
did, they would soon make of him a savage and 
idolater. 

Yv r e have a farther question to ask. If it be 
right and incumbent to subject children to the 



NEGRO SLAVERY. 89 

authority of parents and guardians, and idiots and 
lunatics to committees, would it not be equally 
right and incumbent to give the free negroes mas- 
ters, until at least they arrive at years of discre- 
tion, which very few ever did or will attain ? What 
is the difference between the authority of a parent 
and of a master ? Neither pay wages, and each 
is entitled to the services of those subject to him. 
The father may not sell his child forever, but may 
hire him out till he is twenty-one. The free ne- 
gro's master may also be restrained from selling. 
Let him stand in loco parentis, and call him papa 
instead of master. Look closely into slavery, and 
you will see nothing so hideous in it ; or if you 
do, you vail find plenty of it at home in its most 
hideous form. 

The earliest civilization of which history gives 
account is that of Egypt. The negro was always 
in contact with that civilization. For four thou- 
sand years he has had opportunities of becoming 
civilized. Like the wild horse, he must be caught, 
tamed and domesticated. When his subjugation 
ceases he again runs wild, like the cattle on the 
Pampas of the South, or the horses on the prairies 
of the West. His condition in the West Indies 
proves this. 

It is a common remark, that the grand and last- 
ing architectural structures of antiquity were the 
results of slavery. The mighty and continued as- 



90 NEGRO SLAVERY. 

sociation of labor requisite to their construction, 
when mechanic art "was so little advanced, and 
labor-saving processes unknown, could only have 
been brought about by a despotic authority, like 
that of the master over his slaves. It is, however, 
very remarkable, that whilst in taste and artistic 
skill the world seems to have been retrograding 
ever since the decay and abolition of feudalism, in 
mechanical invention and in great utilitarian ope- 
rations requiring the wielding of immense capital 
and much labor, its progress has been unexampled. 
Is it because capital is more despotic in its au- 
thority over free laborers than Roman masters and 
feudal lords were over their slaves and vassals ? 

Free society has continued long enough to jus- 
tify the attempt to generalize its phenomena, and 
calculate its moral and intellectual influences. It 
is obvious that, in whatever is purely utilitarian 
and material, it incites invention and stimulates 
industry. Benjamin Franklin, as a man and a 
philosopher, is the best exponent of the working 
of the system. His sentiments and his philosophy 
are low, selfish, atheistic and material. They tend 
directly to make man a mere "featherless biped," 
well-fed, well-clothed and comfortable, but regard- 
less of his soul as "the beasts that perish. " 

Since the Reformation the world has as regu- 
larly been retrograding in whatever belongs to the 
departments of genius, taste and art, as it has 



NEGRO SLAVERY. 91 

been progressing in physical science and its appli- 
cation to mechanical construction. Mediaeval Italv 
rivalled if it did not surpass ancient Rome, in 
poetry, in sculpture, in painting, and many of the 
fine arts. Gothic architecture reared its monu- 
ments of skill and genius throughout Europe, till 
the 15th century ; but Gothic architecture died 
with the Reformation. The age of Elizabeth was 
the Augustan acre of England. The men who 
lived then acquired their sentiments in a world not 
yet deadened and vulgarized by puritanical cant 
and levelling demas-o^uism. Since then men have 
arisen who have been the fashion and the go for a 
season, but none have appeared whose names will 
descend to posterity. Liberty and equality made 
slower advances in France. The age of Louis 
XIV. was the culminating point of French genius 
and art. It then shed but a flickering and lurid 
light. Frenchmen are servile copyists of Roman 
art, and Rome had no art of her own. She bor- 
rowed from Greece; distorted and deteriorated 
what she borrowed; and France imitates and falls 
below Roman distortions. The genius of Spain 
disappeared with Cervantes ; and now the world 
seems to regard nothing as desirable except what 
will make money and what costs money. There 
is not a poet, an orator, a sculptor, or painter in 
the world. The tedious elaboration necessary to 
all the productions of high art would be ridiculed 



92 NEGRO SLAVERY. 

in this money-making, utilitarian, charlatan age. 
Nothing now but what is gaudy and costly excites 
admiration. The public taste is debased. 

But far the worst feature of modern civilization, 
which is the civilization of free society, remains to 
be exposed. Whilst labor-saving processes have 
probably lessened by one half, in the last century, 
the amount of work needed for comfortable sup- 
V port, the free laborer is compelled by capital and 
competition to work more than he ever did before, 
and is less comfortable. The organization of so- 
ciety cheats him of his earnings, and those earn- 
ings go to swell the vulgar pomp and pageantry 
of the ignorant millionaires, who are the only 
great of the present day. These reflections might 
seem, at first view, to have little connexion with 
negro slavery ; but it is well for us of the South 
not to be deceived by the tinsel glare and glitter 
of free society, and to employ ourselves in doing 
our duty at home, and studying the past, rather 
than in insidious rivalry of the expensive pleasures 
and pursuits of men whose sentiments and wdiose 
aims are low, sensual and grovelling. 

^ Human progress, consisting in moral and intel- 
lectual improvement, and there being no agreed 
and conventional standard weights or measures of 
moral and intellectual qualities and quantities, the 
question of progress can never be accurately de- 
cided. We maintain that man has not improved, 



NEGRO SLAVERY. 9 

because in a-1 save the mechanic arts lie reverts to 
the distant past for models to imitate, and he 
never imitates what he can excel. 

We need never have white slaves in the South, be- 
cause we have black ones. Our citizens, like those 
of Home and Athens, are a privileged class. We 
should train and educate them to deserve the privi- 
leges and to perform the duties which society con- 
fers on them. Instead, by a low demagoguism de- 
pressing their self-respect by discourses on the 
equality of man, we had better excite their pride by 
reminding them that they do not fulfil the menial 
offices which white men do in other countries. So- 
ciety does not feel the burden of providing for the 
few helpless paupers in the South. And we should 
recollect that here we have but half the people to 
educate, for half are negroes ; whilst at the xvortb 
they profess to educate ail. It is in our power to 
spike this last gun of the abolitionists. Y\e should 
educate all the poor. The abolitionists say that it 
is one of the necessary consequences of slavery 
that the poor are neglected. It was not so in 
Athens, and in Rome, and should not be so in the 
South. If we had less trade with and less de- 
pendence on the North, all our poor might be pro- 
fitably and honorably employed in trades, profes- 
sions and manufactures. Then we should have a 
rich and denser population. Yet we but marshal 
her in the way that she was going. The South is 



94 NEGRO SLAVERY. 

already aware of the necessity of a new policy, 
and has begun to act on it. Every day more and 
more is done for education, the mechanic arts, 
manufactures and internal improvements. We will 
soon be independent of the North. 

We deem this peculiar question of negro slavery 
of very little importance. The issue is made 
throughout the world on the general subject of 
slavery in the abstract. The argument has com- 
menced. One set of ideas will govern and control 
after awhile the civilized world. Slavery will every 
where be abolished, or every where be re-instituted. 
We think the opponents of practical, existing 
slavery, are estopped by their own admission ; 
nay, that unconsciously, as socialists, they are the 
defenders and propagandists of slavery, and have 
furnished the only sound arguments on which its 
defence and justification can be rested. We have 
introduced the subject of negro slavery to afford 
us a better opportunity to disclaim the purpose of 
reducing the white man any where to the condition 
of negro slaves here. It would be very unwise 
and unscientific to govern white men as you would 
negroes. Every shade and variety of slavery has 
existed in the world. In some cases there has 
been much of legal regulation, much restraint of 
the master's authority ; in others, none at all. 
The character of slavery necessary to protect the 
whites in Europe should be much milder than 



NEGRO SLAVERY. 95 

negro slavery, for slavery is only needed to pro- 
tect the white man, whilst it is more necessary for 
the government of the negro even than for his 
protection. But even negro slavery should not be 
outlawed. We might and should have laws in 
Virginia, as in Louisiana, to make the master sub- 
ject to presentment by the grand jury and to pun- 
ishment, for any inhuman or improper treatment 
or neglect of his slave. 

We abhor the doctrine of the " Types of Man- 
kind ;" first, because it is a*t war with scripture, 
which teaches us that the whole human race is 
descended from a common parentage; and, se- 
condly, because it encourages and incites brutal 
masters to treat negroes, not as weak, ignorant 
and dependent brethren, but as wicked beasts, 
without the pale of humanity. The Southerner is 
the negro's friend, his only friend. Let no inter- 
meddling abolitionist, no refined philosophy, dis- 
solve this friendship, v 



CHAPTER VI. 

SCRIPTURAL AUTHORITY FOR SLAVERY. 

We find slavery repeatedly instituted by* God, 
or by men acting under his immediate care and 
direction, as in the instances of Moses and Joshua. 
Nowhere in the Old or New Testament do we find 
the institution condemned, but frequently recog- 
nized and enforced. In individual instances slavery 
may be treated as an evil, and no doubt it is often 
a very great one where its subject is fitted to take 
care of himself and would be happier and more 
useful as a freeman than as a slave. It was often 
imposed as a punishment for sin, but this affords 
no argument against its usefulness or its necessity. 
It is probably no cause of regret that men are so 
constituted as to require that many should be 
slaves. Slavery opens many sources of happiness 
and occasions and encourages the exercise of many 
virtues and affections which would be unknown 
without it. It begets friendly, kind and affection- 
ate relations, just as equality engenders antago- 
nism and hostility on all sides. The condition of 
slavery in all ages and in all countries has been 
considered in the general disgraceful, but so to 
some extent have hundreds of the necessary trades 



SCRIPTURAL AUTHORITY FOB SLAVERY. 97 

and occupations of freemen. The necessity which 
often compels the best of men to resort to such 
trades and occupations in no degree degrades their 
character, nor does the necessity which imposes 
slavery degrade the character of the slave. The 
man who acts well his part, whether as slave or 
free laborer, is entitled to and commands the es- 
teem and respect of all good men. The disgrace 
of slavery all consists in the cowardice, the im- 
providence or crime which generally originate it. 
The Babylonian captivity and slavery w T ere in- 
tended to chastise, purify and elevate the Jews, 
not to degrade them. The disgrace consisted in 
the crimes, the effeminacy and the idolatry which 
invited and occasioned that captivity. 

If the scriptural authority for slavery were rob- 
bed of its divine authorship, still it would stand 
far above all human authority. Moses, if an im- 
postor, was the wisest statesman that ever lived. 
Under his stereotyped and unchangeable institu- 
tions, Judea, a small and barren country, went on 
to prosper, until in the age of Solomon, the Jews 
became the wealthiest and most enlightened people 
on earth. More than a thousand years afterwards, 
in the reign of Vespasian, the single city of 
Jerusalem defied for six months the combined 
power of the civilized world, led on by the best 
warrior and greatest genius of the age. 

Such vitality did those institutions of Moses 
E 



98 SCRIPTURAL AUTHORITY FOR SLAVERY. 

possess, that although the Jews were scattered in 
after times to the four winds of heaven, down trod- 
den, hated, persecuted, oppressed, still clinging to 
the very letter of his law, they are to day a great, 
numerous and prosperous people. Whilst the lower 
classes among them are shrewd, cunning, filthy 
and dishonest, the upper classes are honest, high- 
minded, enlightened and immensely wealthy. To- 
day, the Rothschilds wield as much power as the 
Emperor Nicholas, and wield it more wisely and 
humanely. Of their institutions slavery was an 
important element. If their unparalleled wisdom 
and success prove not their divine origin, this at 
least proves that they are infinitely the best models 
of human polity. 

Ham, a son of Noah, was condemned to slavery 
and his posterity after him. We do not adopt the 
theory that he was the ancestor of the negro race. 
The Jewish slaves were not negroes, and to con- 
fine the justification of slavery to that race would 
be to weaken its scriptural authority, and to lose 
the w T hole weight of profane authority, for we read 
of no negro slavery in ancient times. 

The righteous Abraham, the chosen of God from 
a wicked world, was both prince and master. He 
possessed the power of life and death over his 
subjects or slaves, and over his wife and children. 
When about to sacrifice Isaac, he never dreamed 
that any human authority could dispute his right 



SCRIPTURAL AUTHORITY TOR SLAVERY. 99 

or stay his hand. Yet who would not prefer to 
have been of the household of Abraham, to delving 
as a free laborer for some vulgar boss of modern 
times. In the times of Abraham, we may infer 
from his history that all masters possessed the 
power of life and death. It teaches us another 
lesson, — how much there is in a name. We attach 
nothing humiliating or disgraceful to the situation 
of the subject of a despotic prince; but call him 
master, " there all the dishonor lies." In truth, 
the influences on character are the same, provided 
the persons subjected be the same. 

The first runaway we read of was Hagar, and 
she we find, like runaways at the North, about 
to perish for want. An angel of the Lord did 
not spurn the office which Senator Sumner con- 
temns — to restore the fugitive to her owners. 
"And the Angel of the Lord said unto her, re- 
turn to thy mistress and submit thyself under 
her hands." St. Paul, the Chevalier Bayard of 
Christianity, had not so nice a sense of honor as 
the Massachusetts Senator. He returned Onesi- 
mus to his master. Christianity then inculcated 
and enjoined obedience to masters. Pretended 
Christianity, now, incites disobedience and insur- 
rection, and heads mobs to rescue slaves from 
their masters. 

In Judea men might become slaves, as captives 
taken in war; probably a majority of slaves were 



lOU SCu^xTRAL AUTHORITY FOR SLAVERY. 

of this character. It has been, on insufficient 
grounds we think, assumed, that slavery owes its 
origin generally to this source. 

It is true that ancient peoples made slaves of 
the vanquished, but it is also true, that in all in- 
stances we find slavery pre-existing in both the 
conquering and conquered nation. The word " ser- 
vus" is said to derive its origin from the fact that 
prisoners of war who were made slaves, were 
saved or preserved from death thereby ; their lives 
being, according to the Law of Nations as then 
understood, forfeited to the victor. The Chinese 
every day sell themselves to each other to "save 
or preserve" themselves from want, hunger and 
death. Such instances no doubt were of daily oc- 
currence in all ancient societies, and the word "ser- 
vus" may have as well originated from this social 
practice as from the practices of war. We do not 
think history will sustain the theory that even in 
case of war, it was the mere saving the life, that 
originated the term. Conquerors in feudal times, 
we know, and probably in all times, parcelled out 
the conquered territory, both the lands and the 
people, to inferior chieftains, whose interest and 
duty it became to preserve lands, fruits, crops, 
houses, and inhabitants, from the cruel rapine, 
waste, pillage and oppression of the common sol- 
diers. It is the interest of victors not to destroy 
what they have vanquished, and history shows 



SCRIPTURAL AUTHORITY FOR SLAVERY. 101 

that their usages have conformed to their interests. 
We deem this definition of the origin of slavery 
by war more consistent with history and humanity, 
than the usual one, that the mere life of the pri- 
soner was saved, and hence he was called "servus." 

Men might sell themselves in Judea, and they 
could be sold for debt or crime. The slavery of 
the Jews was but temporary, that of the heathen 
to the Jews hereditary. We cannot conclude the 
scriptural view of slavery better than by the cita- 
tion of authorities collected and collated from the 
Old and New Testaments by Professor Stuart of 
Andover, in a pamphlet entitled, " Conscience and 
the Constitution." 

Exodus xxi : 2. If thou buy a Hebrew servant, 
six years he shall serve, and he the seventh shall 
go out free for nothing. (3.) If he came in by 
himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were 
married, then his wife shall go out with him. 
(4.) If his master have given him a wife, and she 
have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and 
her children shall be her master's, and he shall go 
out by himself. (7.) And if a man sell his daugh- 
ter to be a maid servant, she shall not go out as 
the men servants do. (8.) If she please not her 
master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then 
shall he let her be redeemed : to sell her unto a 
strange nation, he shall have no power, seeing he 
hath dealt deceitfully with her. (9.) And if he 



102 SCRIPTURAL AUTHORITY FOR SLAVERY. 

have betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with 
her after the manner of daughters. (10.) If he 
take him another wife, her food, her raiment, and 
her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish. (11.) 
And if he do not these three unto her, then shall 
she go out free without money. (20.) And if a 
man smite his servant or his maid, with a rod, and 
he die under his hand, he shall be surely punished. 
(21.) Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, 
he shall not be punished : for he is his money. 
(26.) And if a man smite the eye of his servant 
or maid, that it perish, he shall let him go free 
for his eye's sake. (27.) And if he smite out his 
man servant's tooth or his maid servant's tooth ; 
he shall let him go free for the tooth's sake. 

Leviticus xxv : 44. Both thy bondmen and thy 
bondmaids which thou shalt have, shall be of the 
heathen that are around about you ; of them 
shall you buy bondmen and bondmaids. (45.) 
Moreover, of the children of the strangers that 
do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, 
and of their families that are with you, which 
they begat in your land ; and they shall be your 
possession. (46.) And ye shall take them as an 
inheritance for your children after you, to inherit 
them for a possession ; they shall be your bond- 
men forever. 

Neio Testament Authorities. — Paul to the Ephe- 
sians vi : 5 — 9. Servants, be obedient to them 



SCRIPTURAL AUTHORITY FOR SLAVERY. 103 

that are your masters according to the flesh, with 
fear and trembling, with singleness of heart, as 
unto Christ ; (6.) Not with eye service as men- 
pleasers; but as the servants of Christ doing the 
will of God from the heart. (7.) With good will 
doing service as to the Lord, and not to men ; 
(8.) Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man 
doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, 
w T hether he be bond or free. (9.) And ye mas- 
ters, do the same thing unto them, forbearing 
threatening, knowing that your Master also is in 
heaven ; neither is there respect of persons with 
him. 

Paul, Colossians iii: 22. Servants obey in all 
things your masters according to the flesh ; not 
with eye service as men-pleasers ; but in single- 
ness of heart fearing God. (23.) And whatsoever 
ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not unto 
man ; knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive 
the reward of the inheritance : for ye serve the 
Lord Christ. (25.) But he that doeth wrong, shall 
receive for the wrong wilich he hath done : and 
there is no respect of persons, (iv: 1.) Masters 
give unto your servants that which is just and 
equal, knowing that you also have a Master in 
heaven. 

Titus ii: 9. Exhort servants to be obedient unto 
their own masters, and to please them w T ell in all 
things : not answering again ; (10.) Not purloin- 



104 SCRIPTURAL AUTHORITY FOR SLAVERY. 

ing, but showing all good fidelity ; that they may 
adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things. 
1 Peter ii: 18. Servants be subject to your mas- 
ters with all fear ; not only to the good and gen- 
tle, but also to the froward. (19.) For this is 
thank-worthy, if a man for conscience toward God 
endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory 
is it, if when ye be buffetted for your faults, ye 
shall take it patiently ? but if when ye do well 
and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is ac- 
ceptable with God. (21.) For even hereunto were 
ye called : because Christ also suffered for us, 
leaving us an example that ye should follow his 
steps. 



CHAPTER VII. 

DOMESTIC AFFECTION. 

Historians and philosophers, speculating upon 
the origin of governments, have generally agreed 
that the family was its first development. It has 
ever been, and will ever be, its most common form. 
Two-thirds of mankind, the women and children, 
are everywhere the subjects of family govern- 
ment. In all countries where-- slavery exists, the 
slaves also are the subjects of this kind of gov- 
ernment. Now slaves, wives and children have 
no other government ; they do not come directly 
in contact with the institutions and rulers of the 
State. But the family government, from its na- 
ture, has ever been despotic. The relations be- 
tween the parent or master and his family sub- 
jects are too various, minute and delicate, to be 
arranged, defined, and enforced by law. God has 
in his mercy and wisdom provided a better check, 
to temper and direct the power of the master of 
the family, than any human government has de- 
vised. He who takes note of every sparrow that 
falls, who will not break the bruised reed, and 
who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, has not 
been forgetful or regardless of wives, children, 
and slaves. He has extended the broad panoply 



106 DOMESTIC AFFECTION. 

of domestic affection over them all, that the winds 
of heaven may not visit them too roughly ; under 
its expansive folds other of his creatures repose 
in quiet and security: the ox, the horse, the sheep, 
the faithful clog, betake themselves to its friendly 
shelter, and cluster around their protecting mas- 
ter. 

Domestic affection cannot be calculated in dol- 
lars and cents. It cannot be weighed, or meas- 
ured, or seen, or felt — except in its effects. " The 
wind bloweth where it listeth and no man knoweth 
whence it cometh or whither it goeth." Its holy 
fountain is concealed in deeper recesses than the 
head of the Nile, and in its course it dispenses 
blessings from the rich overflowings of the heart, 
ten thousand times more precious than that sacred 
river ever gave to the land of Egypt. Political 
economists, politicians and materialists ignore its 
existence, because it is too refined for their com- 
prehension. The material world engrosses their 
attention, and they heed little those moral 
agencies that Providence has established to con- 
trol the material world. Slavery without domes- 
tic affection would be a curse, and so would mar- 
riage and parental authority. The free laborer 
is excluded from its holy and charmed circle. 
Shelterless, naked, and hungry, he is exposed to 
the bleak winds, the cold rains, and hot sun of 
heaven, with none that love him, none that care 



DOMESTIC AFFECTION. 107 

for him. His employer hates him because he 
asks high wages or joins strikes ; his fellow la- 
borer hates him because he competes with him for 
employment. Foolish Abolitionists ! bring him 
back like the Prodigal Son. Let him fare at 
least as w T ell as the dog, and the horse, and the 
sheep. Abraham's tent is ready to receive him. 
Better lie down with the kids and the goats, than 
stand naked and hungry without. As a slave, he 
will be beloved and protected. Whilst free, he 
will be hated, despised and persecuted. Such is 
the will of God and order of Providence. It is 
idle to enquire the reasons. 

Soldiers and sailors are, and ever must be, also, 
the subjects of despotic rule. They have sold 
their liberty. They have sold their persons and 
their lives. No domestic affection mitigates and 
qualifies their slavery ! Those who rule them, 
love them not, for they belong not to their family 
and household. It is well that they are men in 
the prime of life, w T ho can bear hard and harsh 
treatment ; for hard and harsh treatment they are 
sure to get. Whipping is prohibited in the army 
and navy ! Miserable ignorance and charlatan- 
ism ! You cannot prohibit wdiipping until you 
disband both army and navy. What is whip- 
ping ? Is it not corporeal punishment ? and is 
not corporeal detention and corporeal punishment 
part of the sailor's and soldier's contract. If he 



108 DOMESTIC AFFECTION. 

wishes to desert, may you not and "will you not 
restrain him by bodily force ? Will you not, if 
necessary, knock him down, hand-cuff, and im- 
prison him? Nay, if he repeat the offence, will 
you not shoot him ? Will you not fasten a chain 
and a block to him if necessary? Whipping has 
not been abolished, and cannot be abolished in 
navy or army. Whipping means — corporeal pun- 
ishment, and corporeal detention. You retain the 
right to inflict them, and it is a mere matter of 
caprice and taste how they shall be inflicted. The 
man whose person is sold is a slave. The man 
whose person is imprisoned for punishment has 
felt the disgrace of whipping and endured more 
than its pains. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

RELIGION. 

Our ancestors of the Revolution adopted the 
doctrine of free competition, demand and supply, 
and Laissez-faire in religion, as in almost every- 
thing else. The " world was too much governed," 
and religion seemed to them, one of the most odi- 
ous forms of government. The fires of Smithfield, 
the Gun-powder plot, and the Vespers of St. Bar- 
tholomew were fresh in men's memories. 

The Churches and lands of the Episcopal Church 
were confiscated, And an even-handed justice re- 
solved that there should be no more churches, 
church lands, nor even burying places for the poor. 
Land could not be held for such purposes. They 
professed to allow every one to choose his own 
religion, but refused them a place wherein to 
make the selection, and to worship God after the 
selection should be made. No government had 
ever existed without a recognised state religion. 
To dispense with an institution so universal and 
so natural, was a bold experiment. Fortunately 
for us, Christianity did slip into our governments 
despite the intention of their framers. It was 
so interwoven with all our customs, feelings, pre- 
judices and lives, that to the surprise and mortifi- 



110 RELIGION. 

cation of many, Christianity, though maimed, crip- 
pled and disabled, still Christianity was discov- 
ered amongst our own institutions ; and probably 
has continued to this day the most potent and 
influential part of our systems. 

Despite the Constitution of the United States, 
which secures to all the free exercise of religious 
freedom, there is scarcely a State in this Union 
that would permit, under the pretext of religious 
forms and observances, any gross violations of 
christian morality. 

Mormons and Oneida Perfectionists would no 
sooner be tolerated in Virginia than Pyrrhic Dances 
and human sacrifices to Moloch. Even Catholics 
would not be permitted to enact a Parisian sab- 
bath, or Venitian carnival. Christianity is the 
established religion of most of our States, and 
Christianity conforming itself to the moral feelings 
and prejudices of the great majority of the peo- 
ple. No gross violation of public decency will be 
allowed for the sake of false abstractions. 

Women may wear paddies or bloomers, but if 
they carry the spirit of independence so far as 
to adopt a dress to conceal their sex, they will 
soon find themselves in a cage or a prison. 

We wished to try the experiment of government 
without religion, we failed in the attempt. The 
French did try it, and enthroned the goddess of 
Reason hard by the reeking guillotine. Moloch 
mi^ht have envied the Goddess the number of her 



RELIGION. Ill 

victims, for the streets of Paris ran with blood. 
The insane ravings of the drunken votaries of Bac- 
chus, were innocency and decency personified, when 
compared with the mad profanity of Frenchmen, 
cut loose from religion, and from God. 

Soon, very soon, even French republicans dis- 
covered the necessity of religion to the very exis- 
tence of society and of government, and with a pro- 
fanity more horrible than that which installed the 
goddess of Reason, they resolved to legislate into 
existence a Supreme Being. On this occasion, the 
cruel Robespierre pays one of the most beautiful 
and just tributes to religion we have ever read. 
We quote it as a continuation of our argument 
and an elucidation of our theory — " That religion 
is a necessary governmental institution." 

"Let us here take a lesson from history. Take 
notice, I beseech you, how the men who have ex- 
ercised an influence on the destinies of States 
have been led into one or the other of the two oppo- 
site systems, by their personal character, and by 
the very nature of their political views. Observe 
with what profound art Caesar pleading in the 
Roman Senate, in behalf of the accomplices of 
Cataline, deviates into a digression against the 
dogma of the immortality of the human soul, so 
well calculated do those ideas appear to him, to 
extinguish in the hearts of the judges the energy 
of virtue, so intimately does the cause of crime 



112 RELIGION. 

seem to be connected with that of infidelity. — 
Cicero, on the contrary, invoked the sword of the 
law and the thunderbolts of the gods against the 
traitors. Leonidas, at Thermopylae, supping with 
his companions in arms, the moment before exe- 
cuting the most heroic design that human vir- 
tue ever conceived, invited them for the next day 
to another banquet in a new life. Cato did not 
hesitate between Epicurus and Zeno. Brutus and 
the illustrious conspirators who shared his dan- 
ger and his glory, belonged also to that sublime 
sect of the Stoics, which had such lofty ideas of the 
dignity of man, which carried the enthusiasm of 
virtue to such a height, and which was extravagant 
in heroism only. Stoicism saved the honor of 
human nature, degraded by the vices of the suc- 
cessors of Caesar, and still more by the patience 
of the people." 

In the same speech, speaking of the philoso- 
phers, he identifies atheism and materialism with 
the then and now prevalent doctrines of Politi- 
cal Economy. — " This sect propagated with great 
zeal the opinion of materialism, which prevailed 
among the great and among the Beaux Esprits ; 
to it we owe in part that kind of practical philo- 
sophy, which, reducing selfishness to a system, 
considers human society as a warfare of trickery, 
success as the rule of right and wrong, integrity 
as a matter of taste or decorum, the world as 
the patrimony of clever scoundrels." 



RELIGION. 113 

We are gradually dismissing our political pre- 
judice against religion. The Legislature of Vir- 
ginia, some years ago, passed a law to permit re- 
ligious congregations to hold land to erect churches 
on, and at its last session a law was enacted 
chartering some religious institution. The ob- 
servance of the Christian sabbath is enforced by 
law. Ministers of the gospel are recognised as 
such, incapacitated to hold civil offices and ex- 
empted from many civil duties. Oaths are admin- 
istered on the Bible, and infidels, it is the better 
opinion, are incompetent witnesses. Marriage in 
the South is generally a Christian ordinance as 
well as a civil contract, to be celebrated only by 
ministers of the Gospel. At the North marriage 
is a mere bargain, like the purchase of a horse, 
with the difference, that the wife cannot be swap- 
ped off — hence, when they get tired of her, they 
knock her on the head. 

AVe are not surprised that frequent wife-murder 
should result from their low, sordid, worldly view 
of the marriage tie, and still less surprised, that 
with these, and a hundred other ill consequences 
arising from their sort of marriages, that women's 
conventions should be held to assert her rights 
to liberty, independence and breeches, and that 
sympathising bachelors in the ranks of the Social- 
ists, propose to dispense with this troublesome and 
inconvenient relation altogether. In the North 



114 RELIGION. 

there is a tendency to anarchy and infidelity, in 
the South to conservatism and stricter religious ob- 
servation. We should be cautious, prudent and 
experimental in giving governmental aid to reli- 
gion. Like fire, if it escapes from our control, 
it will become dangerous and destructive, — but it 
is nevertheless like fire, indispensable. A repub- 
lic cannot continue without the prevalence of sound 
morality. Laws are useless and inefficient without 
moral men to expound and administer them. 

We have not a solitary example in all history 
to countenance the theories of our ancestors, that 
a people may be moral, or that a government can 
exist where religion is not in some form or de- 
gree recognised by law. What latitude shall be 
allowed to men in the exercise and practice of reli 
gion, is a question for the people to determine 
when the occasion requires it. It is best not to 
lay down abstract principles to guide us in advance. 
Of all the applications of philosophy none have 
failed so signally as when it has been tried in 
matters of government. Philosophy will blow up 
any government that is founded on it. Religion, 
on the other hand, will sustain the governments 
that rest upon it. The French build governments 
on a priori doctrines of philosophy which explode 
as fast as built. The English gradually and experi- 
mentally form institutions, watch their operation, 
and deduce general laws from those operations. 



RELIGION. 115 

That kind of philosophy, which neither attempts 
to create nor account for, is admissible and useful. 
An extensive knowledge of the history of the 
various moral philosophies that have succeeded 
each other in the world, is useful, but only useful 
because it warns us to avoid all philosophy in the 
practical affairs of life. If we would have our 
people moral, and our institutions permanent, we 
should gradually repudiate our political abstrac- 
tions and adopt religious truths in their stead. 

It is an unpoplar theme to deny human pro- 
gress and human improvement. We flatter our- 
selves that we are more enlightened as well as 
more moral than the ancients, yet we imitate 
them in all else save the mechanic arts. Our 
hearts, we think, are not as hard and callous as 
theirs, for they delighted in gladiatorial combats 
which would fill us with horror. But we are as 
much pleased to hear of victories won by our 
countrymen as they, and our pleasure mounts the 
higher as we hear of more of the enemy killed in 
battle. Our nerves are too delicate to witness 
the pangs of the dying, but we rejoice to hear 
they are dead. Now, our moral code is one of 
the purest selfishness. The ancients were divided 
between Stoicism and Epicurism, — the philosophy 
of the Sadducees and that of the Pharisees. 
Neither the Epicurean, nor the Sadducee profes- 
sed as low, selfish and grovelling a morality as 



116 RELIGION. 

that which our prevalent political economy incul- 
cates. The Stoics and the Pharisees soared far above 
it. Divest us of our Christian morality, and leave 
us to our moral philosophy, and we might dread 
the comparison with any era of the past. "We 
have but one moral code, and that the selfish one ; 
the ancients always had two, one of which was 
elevated, self-denying and unselfish. In truth, a 
material and infidel philosophy has prevailed for 
a century, and seemed to threaten the overthrow 
of Christianity. But man is a religious animal. 
His mind may become distempered and diseased 
for a time, and he may cavil and doubt as to 
Deity, immortality and accountability — but " con- 
science that makes cowards of us all," soon forces 
upon him the conviction that he is living in the 
presence of a God. The belief" in God and moral 
accountability, like the belief in self-existence and 
free agency, is necessitous and involuntary. It 
is part of our consciousness. We cannot prove 
that we exist; we cannot prove that we are free 
agents. We must take our consciousness and 
involuntary belief, as proof that we do exist and 
are free agents. This is the conclusion at which 
metaphysicians have arrived. Now explore all the 
secrets of human hearts, all the recesses of his- 
tory, and it will be found that religion is as much 
a matter of consciousness and involuntary belief 
as free agency or self-existence. It is a stubborn 



RELIGION. 117 

fact in human nature. Statesmen cannot ignore 
its existence, and must provide for its exercise and 
enjoyment, else their institutions will vanish like 
chaff before the winch 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE BALANCE OF TRADE. 

Political economists maintain that a nation gains 
nothing by selling more than it buys. That the 
balance of trade is a humbug ; nay more, that the 
way for a nation to get rich is to buy more than 
it sells. Thus more will come in than goes out. 
Instinct and common sense deny the proposition. 
They say, that the way for individuals or people 
to get rich is to sell more than they buy. Philo- 
sophy beats them all hollow in argument, yet in- 
stinct and common sense are right and philoso- 
phy wrong. Philosophy is always wrong and in- 
stinct and common sense always right, because 
philosophy is unobservant and reasons from nar- 
row and insufficient premises, whilst common sense 
sees and observes all things, giving them their due 
weight, comes to just conclusions, but being 
busied about practical every day matters, has 
never learned the process of abstraction, has 
never learned how to look into the operations of 
its mind and see how it has come to its conclu- 
sions. It always judges rightly, but reasons 
wrong. It comes to its conclusions by the same 
processes of ratiocination that abstract philoso- 
phers do, but unaccustomed and untrained to look 



THE BALANCE OE TRADE. 119 

into its own mental operations, it knows not how 
it arrived at those conclusions. It sees all the 
facts and concludes rightly, — abstract philosophers 
see but a few, reason correctly on them, but err 
in judgment because their premises are partial and 
incorrect. Men of sound judgments, are always 
men who give wrong reasons for their opinions. 
They form correct opinions because they are 
practical and experienced; they give wrong rea- 
sons for those opinions, because they are no ab- 
stractionists and cannot detect, follow and ex- 
plain the operations of their own minds. The 
judgment of women is far superior to that of 
men. They are more calm and observant. Every 
mirried man knows that when he places a scheme 
before his wife and she disapproves it, he con- 
quers her in argument, goes away distrusting his 
own opinion, though triumphant, and finds in the 
end his wife was right, though she could not tell 
why. Women have more sense than men, but 
they want courage to carry out and execute what 
their judgments commend. Hence men, although 
they fail in a thousand visionary schemes, succeed 
at last in some one, and are dubbed the nobler 
sex. An old bachelor friend of ours, says: women 
are great at a quarrel, bad at argument. 

This is deviating a little from the balance of 
trade, but we return to it. All political econo- 
mists contend that the local increase of currency 



120 THE BALANCE OF TRADE. 

increases prices, and Say goes so far as to say that 
doubling the money in France, "would double prices 
in France. Rich men do not give double as high 
prices as poor men, but buy cheaper, although' 
they have more money. Money is cheap and 
abundant in London, and prices are not half what 
they are in new countries, which are flourishing, 
and where money is scarce. Double the amount 
of money in the world, and you double prices. 
Double its amount in any one country, and in 
many instances you would diminish prices. — 
Wheat and corn, and negroes, and manufactured 
articles, would sell no higher in Virginia, if her 
currency were quadrupled, for she would have her 
prices determined for those articles, by the mar- 
kets of the world. Lands fitted for mere grain 
producing w r ould sell no higher, for their value 
would be determined by the amount of money 
their crops would fetch in foreign markets, and 
be not at all affected by the amount of money in 
Virginia, for Virginia makes more grain than she 
can consume, and foreign markets regulate its 
price. City lots and houses w r ould rise in value, 
but even in them the prices would be somewhat 
regulated by the prices of the world, for men will 
sooner quit their country than give inordinate 
prices for houses to live in. We never could ac- 
count for the common error and folly of political 
economists, in supposing that a local increase of 



121 THE BALANCE OF TRABE. 

currency, would be followed by a corresponding 
increase of prices* If it were true, then the bal- 
ance of trade would be of no advantage, but it 
is foolishly false. 

The balance of trade, the accumulation and 
increase of money, having no determinate in- 
fluence on prices, in many cases diminishing them, 
in a few increasing them, what is to become of 
the accession to the currency, for which the bu- 
siness of the community has no use or demand ? 
Men will not let their money lie idle. It cannot 
be employed by themselves, or by those who bor- 
row it, in existing pursuits. They are all filled 
up. The consequence is, that new pursuits arise. 
An agricultural country becomes a commercial 
and manufacturing one, and thus four or five 
times the money is required for its transactions. 
Ships and factories are built, and thousands of 
laborers and artisans are introduced for the 
purpose. Then it becomes necessary to build 
houses, to construct roads, and to make canals. 
Now there is use for the increase of money, oc= 
casioned by the favorable balance of trade ; 
and as one dollar in currency represents some 
twenty in property, every dollar imported in 
excess over dollars exported, will occasion an 
increase of local and national wealth of twenty 
dollars. The man who saves a thousand dollars 
of his income is only a thousand dollars richer, 

F 



THE BALANCE 0E TRADE. * 122 

but the nation that saves a thousand dollars adds 
twenty thousand to its wealth. We are no 
cosmopolite philanthropists, and will not stop to 
enquire the effects on the wealth of the world, 
but we undertake to say, that the local advan- 
tages of the balance of trade have been grossly 
underrated by its warmest advocates. Political 
economists have ever been the astutest, but most 
narrow-minded and least comprehensive of men. 
Whilst on this subject we will remark, that so 
far as we have examined their works, they con- 
found the simplest rules of logic. They treat of 
political economy as a mere physical science, of 
man as a mere machine, impelled by mechanical 
forces, and determine the results of all national 
policy and industrial avocations by measurements 
of time, distance, cost of transportation, ca- 
pacity of soil, climate, &c. Now the effect of 
an exclusive policy on a people highly intellectual, 
having many wants, moral, mental and physical, 
in a Northern clime, with a sterile soil, is to stimu- 
late that people to the exertion of mind and body, 
and to make them produce in a small compass all 
that human skill, industry and ingenuity can 
procure. In such a country, as in the little re- 
publics of Greece. . under an exclusive policy, 
the wisdom of a world must concentrate, else 
their wants, moral, physical and intellectual, will 
be unsupplied. On the other hand, a people who 



123 THE BALANCE OF TRADE. 

are supplied by commerce with all that their 
natures require are lured and enticed to be- 
take themselves to some simple operation, such as 
agriculture, and thus become poor, half-civilized 
and ignorant. We appeal to history to attest the 
universal truth of our theory. Trade never did 
civilize a people ; never failed to degrade them, 
unless they supplied the manufactured articles. 
On another occasion we may show how this con- 
founding of the moral with the physical, ren- 
ders worthless all the speculations of the econo- 
mists. 

As further proof and illustration of our theory, 
as to the balance of trade, we cite the following 
examples :- — A country continually declining in 
wealth, would have each day less use for a cir- 
culating medium, and would export a part of it. 
On the other hand, a country improving in wealth 
and population, must continually increase her 
medium of exchange. The balance of trade is, 
therefore, always against the declining country, 
and in favor of the improving one. It remains 
only to show, that this diminution of currency 
may be a cause of decline, and its increase a 
cause of improvement. The importation of agri- 
cultural instruments into a country with a rich 
soil, and plenty of inhabitants, but without those 
instruments, would increase its wealth a thousand 
fold. Now, money is not only necessary to set 



THE BALANCE OF TRADE. 124 

agriculture in operation, but far more necessary 
in all other industrial pursuits, Therefore, the 
increase of money, like the increase of tools of 
farming, sets men to work in a thousand ways, 
in which they could not engage without such in- 
crease. The Negroes, the Indians, the Mexicans 
and Lazzaroni of Naples, would not be benefited 
by the increas3 of currency, by bank expansions, 
and by a favorable balance of trade, but ail peo- 
ple who are ripe and prepared for new enter- 
prises, will Jbe immensely benefited by such in- 
crease and expansion, 



CHAPTER X, 



BANKS. 



Banks have become so important a part of our 
institutions, and exercise so controlling an influ- 
ence on the wealth and well being of individuals 
and of States, that any treatise on social science 
would be imperfect, that omitted to notice them. 

Their importance is greatly increased in this 
country by the existence almost every where of 
restraining laws, which prohibit and punish pri- 
vate banking, or the issue of private paper, pay- 
able to bearer. Private credit being, we think, 
very properly restricted in this way, it becomes 
the duty of the State to supply its place as fairly 
and equally as practicable by bank credit, in the 
form of bank notes. In Virginia especially, the 
note holders have been more than compensated 
for the deprivation of this form of private credit, 
by the greater security afforded through means 
of corporate banks. 

Whether the effect of unrestricted free banking 
would be permanently to flood the country with 
worthless paper, or by re-action and loss of confi- 
dence in all such paper, to bring it back to a 
specie currency, is a question we will not under- 
take to solve. We are inclined to believe a cur- 



BANKS. 126 

rency solely metallic would be the consequence. 
Such a currency is wholly unfitted to the wants 
and usages of modern society. 

The Virginia system of banking, with mother 
banks and branches, has operated well so far as 
security to note holders, and integrity of admin- 
istration are concerned. We have no doubt the 
system, with slight modifications, will be con- 
tinued. In a growing and improving State, its 
capacity for expansion is one of its greatest re- 
commendations. It would be well, within cer- 
tain limits, that the Legislature should permit the 
present banks, at any time, to increase their capi- 
tals, and to establish branches at such points, 
and with such capital, as they please — giving 
them the further power to wind up such branches 
when they pleased. We might thus obtain a cur- 
rency capable of expanding and contracting with 
the wants and exigencies of trade. Now, we have 
a fixed and stationary amount of currency, with 
a population rapidly increasing in wealth and 
numbers. In the last five years the increase of 
prices, occasioned by the mines of California and 
Australia, and the growth and increase of our 
towns, internal improvements, &c, has doubled 
the moneyed price of the property of Virginia. 
Yet in that five years a very small addition has 
been made to our banking capital. Either that 
capital was entirely too great five years ago, or 



127 BANKS. 

it is now much too small, and is cramping indus- 
try, energy and enterprise, and preventing growth 
and development. 

Some political economists contend that the 
increase of currency in a country, metallic or 
paper, after the existing demands of trade are 
satisfied, increases all prices, but does not add 
to national wealth. Others restrict and qualify 
the proposition, and maintain that such increase 
only enhances the prices of immoveable articles, 
whose value is not determined by the markets of 
the world. Their doctrines are equally false. As 
a permanent and normal fact, the prices of lands, 
labor and city lots, are no more affected by a re- 
dundant currency than those of wheat, cotton 
and tobacco. Rich men, with plenty of money, 
do not pay more for what they buy than the poor, 
but less. In like manner, rich communities and 
cities, like New York and London, affording a 
better market, pay less for what they buy and 
sell cheaper than poorer places. New banks, like 
young merchants, have to buy their experience. 
They give too much credit, encourage specu- 
lation and visionary unprofitable enterprises, 
and thus inflate the prices of every thing around 
them for a time. Failures occur, re-action takes 
place, they become over cautious, and depress 
prices as far below the proper standard, as they 
had inflated above it. After awhile they learn 



BANKS. 128 

to conduct business properly, and then prices as- 
sume a proper and safe level. 

Two years more must transpire before the 
Legislature can convene, re-charter the present 
banks, or establish a new system, and get that 
system, or additional branches of the present 
system, into operation. That the State will suf- 
fer greatly from this delay we think there can be 
little doubt. 

A banking system, such as we suggest, would 
wield -much power, and constitute a most impor- 
tant governmental institution. Its influence would 
be conservative, and its administration probably 
fair, equal and impartial. The number of mother 
banks would secure enough of competition, and 
their interests would induce them to establish 
branches, when and where only they w r ould be 
profitable. The stockholders of banks are gen- 
erally men of much experience and knowledge in 
business, cautious and conservative in their deal- 
ings, and opposed to speculations. They are men 
living on their incomes, whose fortunes are made, 
and who have no temptations to incur risk. 
The control of the amount of currency might be 
safely left in their hands, for either too great 
expansions or contractions would injure them. — 
Universal suffrage has given to the progressive 
element in society, the poor, the young, and the 
enterprising, so much power, that this conserva- 
tive balance would not be amiss. 



BANKS. 129 

The prices of land, and the wages of labor, 
are regulated and fixed generally by the prices of 
the products of land and labor, and not at all 
influenced by the scarcity or abundance of money. 

The safe and legitimate influence of expansion, 
or increase of currency, by stimulating enterprises 
that are profitable, is what no one complains of. 
This brings us to consider the doctrine which 
we maintained in our chapter on the Balance of 
Trade, — That the increase of currency, when it is 
merely local or national, will not inflate prices, 
but if it gives rise to new pursuits of industry and 
new investments of capital which are profitable, 
that then each thousand dollars added to the cur- 
rency of a country will add at least twenty thou- 
sand to its wealth. In this we assume that each 
dollar in a community is represented by twenty 
dollars of property. Now, no people are ready 
for an increase of their currency, until they are 
also ready so to increase their population, and 
to vary and add to their trade and pursuits, 
as to have twenty times as much additional capi- 
tal in property as additional currency. In new 
countries we see instances every day where the 
value of property is added to twenty fold, in a 
single year. In an old country the same thing 
will occur, provided accessions to the currency 
occasion new and profitable pursuits and enter- 



130 BANKS. 

prises sufficient permanently to absorb and em- 
ploy such accessions. 

The banks of this State, if they can profitably 
double their issues, can only do so by increasing 
existing trade and business, or by originating meas- 
ures that will result in an increase of the wealth 
of the State twenty fold the increase of their 
issues. Every people ought to have among them 
as much money as can be profitably employed, 
because each additional dollar so employed acids 
ere long twenty to State wealth. If a million of 
dollars were permanently taken away from the 
currency of a country, it must either change its 
pursuits and engage in modes of industry requir- 
ing less capital in money ; or if it continues its 
then existing trade and pursuits, it must lessen 
their amount in proportion to the diminution of 
the currency. This only could be effected by 
diminishing the property of the country twenty 
millions — that is, on the assumption that twenty 
millions of property require for its proper admin- 
istration, sales and transfers, one million of money. 
As we have before contended, an increase of a 
million in currency, to render that increase per- 
manent and profitable, must be followed by a cor- 
responding increase in trade, and that this in- 
crease of trade could only occur under ordinary 
circumstances, when there was an increase of 



BANKS. 131 

twenty millions in the property of the country, to 
require such trade. 

It can make no difference whether the increase 
of currency be occasioned by bank expansions or 
the importation of specie. If the specie be not 
needed, it will be exported ; if the paper be not 
required, it will return on the banks. If either 
continue in circulation, it is because the country 
is increasing, or has increased its property, (of 
other kinds than money.) twenty fold the increase 
of currency. The increase of currency must 
neither entirely precede nor follow the increase 
of business. It should occur as soon and as fast 
as prudent, sensible, and honest men are wil- 
ling to borrow and employ it. Experienced bank 
officers and stockholders will be the best judges 
of when and where to increase or diminish the cur- 
rency. We conclude that if Virginia be ready 
for an increase of her currency in paper or coin, 
she is ready for twenty times as much increase of 
her property, and that such increase cannot be 
permanently made in her currency without pro- 
ducing such increase in her property. We be- 
lieve she is now ready for a very large increase 
of currency, provided such increase be made by 
judicious laws, at proper points in the State. — 
Without it, industry must remain hampered, and 
growth and development be prevented. 



182 BANKS. 

The doctrine that banks necessarily occasion 
speculation and improvidence is untrue. Loans of 
coin are used as improvidently as loans of paper. 
The stockholders, if there were no banks, would 
loan their money in specie ; now through the 
banks they loan it in paper. 

The banks of Virginia, if they err at all, err 
on the safe side, that of extreme caution in mak- 
ing loans. But they aid the poor, the young and 
enterprising, by lending small sums on short 
dates to mechanics, merchants, manufacturers, &c. 
Private individuals lend their money in large 
sums, on long credits, to farmers and other wealthy 
capitalists. Money lent by banks, usually exer- 
cises a better influence on the well being and 
progress of society than money loaned by indi- 
viduals. All Southern cities had excess of bank 
capital twenty years ago, but this excess neither 
produced speculation nor enhanced the price of 
town lots. 



CHAPTER XI, 



USURY* 



Nothing has more perplexed political econo- 
mists and mankind at large, than the subject of 
usury. That it was right, proper, and laudable 
for every man to get the highest market price 
for the use of his money, as for the use of 
every other article, was an obvious deduction from 
all the axioms of the economists. The instincts 
and common sense of mankind, whilst admitting 
the premises, stubbornly denied the unavoidable 
conclusion. Convicted in argument, but not con- 
vinced, they still fought on. In truth, the error 
lay in the premises, in the axioms and first prin- 
ciples of political economy. That systematic self- 
ishness that inculcates the moral duty to let 
every man take care of himself and his own self- 
ish interest, that advises each to use his wits, his 
prudence, and his providence, to get the better 
of those who have less wit, prudence and provi- 
dence, to make the best bargains one can, and 
that a thing is worth what it will bring, is false 
and rotten to the core. It bears no sound fruit, 
brings forth no good morality. "Laissez nous 
faire," and " Caveat Emptor," (the latter the 
maxim of the common law,) justify usury, encour- 



134 USURY. 

age the weak to oppress the strong, and would 
justify swindling and theft, if fully carried out 
into practice. But it is not safe or prudent to 
swindle or steal ; one incurs the penalties of the 
law ; and it is not politic, for one scares off cus- 
tomers and subjects. The man who makes good 
shaving bargains, will in the long run grow rich ; 
the swindler and the thief never do. Mankind 
have ever detested the extortionate usurer who 
takes advantage of distress and misfortune to in- 
crease his profits, more than a Robin Hood who 
robs the rich to relieve the poor. There is always 
at bottom some sound moral reason for the pre- 
judices of mankind. Analyze their motives, their 
feelings and sentiments closely. The man who 
spends a life in dealing hardly and harshly with 
his fellow men, is a much worse and meaner man 
than the highway robber. The latter is chival- 
rous, and where there is chivalry there will be 
occasional generosity. 

The law should protect men, as well from the 
assaults of superior wit as from those of superior 
bodily strength. Men's inequalities of wit, pru- 
dence, and providence, differ in nothing so much, 
as in their capacity to deal in and take care of 
money. This creates the necessity for laws against 
usury. Under occasional circumstances, a heavy 
rate of interest is morally right, but it is gen- 
erally wrong, and laws are passed for ordinary 
and not extraordinary occasions. 



USURY. 135 

We do not think badly of our fellow men, but 
badly of their philosophy. Their kind feelings, 
impulses, and sentiments, get the better of their 
principles, and they are continually doing good 
and preaching evil. / 

If men were no better than political economy 
would make them, the world would be a Pande- 
monium. "--- v 

The Bible fortunately is a more common book 
than Adam Smith. Its influences are exerted 
over the hearts and conduct of thousands who 
never enter a church. " The still small voice of 
conscience" oft brings back the mother's image, 
and the mother's divine precepts, "Love thy neigh- 
bor as thyself," "Do unto others as you would 
that they should do unto you." 

As we pursue this investigation, we become 
daily more disposed to adopt the theory of Ro- 
bespiere, " that political economy and infidelity 
are one and the same." It was the Devil rebuk- 
ing sin; and well he might, for infidel France 
sinned to such an excess as to tire the Devil of 
his own work. 

"Even the very Devil 



On this occasion his own work abhorred, 
So surfeited with the infernal revel; 

Though he himself had sharpened every sword, 
It almost quenched his innate thirst of evil." 



CHAPTER XII. 

.TOWNS, KIVERS AND ROADS. 

Towns and villages are breaks that arrest and 
prevent the exhausting drain of agriculture, aided 
by rivers and roads. They consume the crops of 
the neighborhood, its wood and timber, and thus 
not only furnish a home market, but manures to 
replenish the lands. They afford respectable oc- 
cupations, in the mechanic arts, commerce, man- 
ufactures, and the professions, for the energetic 
young men of the neighborhood. They sustain 
good schools, which a sparse country neighbor- 
hood never can. They furnish places and oppor- 
tunities for association and rational enjoyment to 
the neighborhood around. They support good 
ministers and churches, and thus furnish religious 
consolation and instruction to many who have not 
the means to visit distant places of worship. — 
Rivers and roads, without towns, are mere facili- 
ties offered to agriculture to carry off the crops, 
to exhaust the soil, and to remove the inhabi- 
tants, rich and poor. This was strikingly exem- 
plified in Virginia a few years ago. The people 
on the rich lands, on navigable rivers, were a few 
absentees, without villages, towns, mechanic arts, 
churches or schools. They made money at. home, 



TOWNS, RIVERS AND ROADS. 137 

and the rivers tempted them to spend it abroad. 
They would not send their grain to the little 
towns at the head of tide water, because New 
York and Boston were equally convenient, and 
better markets to buy and sell in. Our towns 
were robbed of the trade of their neighbors be- 
low by the rivers, and there were no roads to 
bring them trade from above. The poor region 
just above the head of tide-water, was becoming 
rich from necessity. They were obliged to have 
villages, mechanic arts, and manufactures at home. 
Thev had no roads or rivers, and were cut off 
from the blessings of free trade. Their villages 
contained good schools and churches, and thus 
compressed within a small compass the advan- 
tages of society and civilization. Most of these 
villages will be ruined by the roads we are con* 
structing to the West. There will be no use for 
them when farmers can sell their crops and get 
their supplies on better terms from the large towns. 
The agricultural portion of the West will be in- 
jured by our system of improvements. Luckily 
for the West, her varied and rich mineral re- 
sources, and her water-power, will occasion min- 
ing and manufactures to be carried on, towns to 
arise, and home markets to be offered to the far- 
mer. This will be the situation of the West gen- 
erally, but in sections where there are neither 



138 TOWNS, RIVERS AND ROADS. 

mines nor water-power, the country will be impov- 
erished by the improvements. 

An overgrown State, like an overgrown man, 
is not generally equal in wisdom or strength to 
one of moderate size. The most distinguished, 
learned and wealthy States of ancient and mo- 
dern times, have had small dominions and small 
populations. They have been obliged, in order to 
secure their independence, to prosecute every art, 
science, trade and avocation belonging to civil- 
ized life. Thus a few came to understand and 
practice what many performed in large and cum- 
brous States. A small nationality and dense pop- 
ulation, not cursed by free trade, necessarily pro- 
duces an intense civilization, provided the nation 
be of a race that needs and loves civilization. 

The effect of free trade and extended dominions, 
is to remove from most individuals and sections 
the necessity to acquire and practice the arts 
of life that require skill and learning, and thus to 
dilute and degrade civilization. 

But separate nationality is a mere form, not a 
reality, when free trade furnishes what the nation 
should produce at home. 

The cities in the South, on tide-water, will 
grow rapidly, as soon as roads enough penetrate the 
West. People from the interior, will sell their 
grain and buy their irfanufactures, groceries and 
other goods, from those cities. Few, very few, 



TOWNS, RIVERS AND ROADS. 139 

will change from the cars to vessels, carry trTeir 
grain North, and buy their supplies there. Around 
all these Southern cities the country will become 
rich. It will be dotted with gardens, orchards 
and villas. Large cities, like New York and Lon- 
don, are great curses, because they impoverish a 
world to enrich a neighborhood. Numerous small 
towns are great blessings, because they prevent 
the evil effects of centralization of trade, retain 
wealth and population at home, and diffuse hap- 
piness and intelligence, by begetting variety of 
pursuits, supporting schools, colleges and religious 
institutions, and affording the means of pleasant 
and frequent association. 

Each Southern State may condense within its 
boundaries all the elements of separate indepen- 
dent nationality. Civilization is imperfect and 
incomplete until this state of things arises. Each 
State must not only have within itself good law- 
yers, doctors and farmers, but able statesmen, 
learned philosophers, distinguished artists, skil- 
ful mechanics, great authors, and every institu- 
tion and pursuit that pertain to high civilization. 
Railroads almost invariably increase national 
wealth to an amount greatly exceeding the cost 
of their construction. In countries purely agri- 
cultural, the increase of wealth which they occa- 
sion, and the diminution of wealth which, when 
properly located, they prevent, is almost incalcu- 



140 TOWNS, RIVERS AND ROADS. 

lable. All the money spent in the construction 
of the road is money saved, for in merely agricul- 
tural countries all money not spent in living is 
carried off in some way from the country. But, 
besides the addition of the road itself, to the 
wealth of such a country, the increase of capital 
in houses, the enhanced value of lots and lands, 
&c, at the town where they terminate, usually 
greatly exceeds the [cost of the road. Every 
road that has been constructed from any of our 
seaboard Atlantic cities, has produced this effect. 
They have occasioned already an increase in the 
value of property in those cities far greater than 
the cost of their construction. Whilst their erec- 
tion is going on, they afford respectable and pro- 
fitable employment to thousands near their track. 
They also afford an excellent market to the far- 
mer for his wood and timber, and many other 
things that were before unsaleable. From these 
various considerations, it would seem to follow, 
at first view, that they should be constructed at 
State expense. Especially, since it is desirable 
that public roads should not be the subjects of 
monopoly. 

The gross and grievous inequalities in the bur- 
den of taxation, and the resulting benefits of 
roads constructed at public expense, is a strong 
consideration against such mode of construction. 
Men living a distance from the roads derive no 



TOWNS, RIVERS AND ROADS. 141 

advantages from them, yet must pay equally for 
building ; men owning valuable stores, taverns, 
&c., in the interior, near where a road passes, 
are often made to pay for improvements that will 
render their property valueless. Whilst the owners 
of vacant lots at the termini, who have scarce 
paid any of the tax that built the road, make 
often immense fortunes by the increase occasioned 
in the value of their lots. 

On the other hand, when the public spirited 
and patriotic, the young, the enterprising and 
the poor, erect public improvements, the rich old 
fogies laugh at their enterprise, refuse to aid to 
the amount of a cent, and Pharisaically con- 
gratulate themselves on their virtue, prudence 
and good sense, in securing, by the situation of 
their property, the larger portion of the profits 
arising from such schemes, if successful, without 
incurring any risk or a cent of cost. 

The towns where they terminate might erect 
them and make a profit by doing so. But the 
owners of houses, merchandise and money would 
pay for them, and the owners of vacant lots reap 
most of the profits. 

We will not undertake to determine how, or 
at whose cost, public improvement should be con- 
structed. We think it would be best to lay down 
no general rule, but for the Legislature to act on 
each application, according to the necessity, char- 



142 TOWNS, RIVERS AND ROADS. 

acter and probable profits and advantages of the 
proposed work. 

Eastern Virginians often complain that they 
are taxed to build roads for the West. Roads 
piercing an agricultural interior, and terminating 
at towns, at or near the ocean, usually impoverish 
the interior and create immense wealth in the 
seaboard towns, and in the country near them. 

If such should be, and to a great extent it no 
doubt will be, the result of our roads, then West- 
ern Virginia might with great propriety com- 
plain that she was made " to pay for a stick to 
break her own head." 

Eastern Virginia is exceedingly conservative. 
She opposes all innovations, and sticks to mud 
roads as pertinaciously as many of her old gen- 
try did to fairtops, shorts and kneebuckles. But 
she must give way at last, for she is proud and 
highly civilized. Rapid intercommunication is the 
distinguishing feature, of modern progress. 'Tis 
part and parcel of the civilization of our times. 
Daily mails, telegraphs and railroads are becom- 
ing necessaries of life. Fashion is omnipotent, 
and these things are exceedingly useful, and "all 
the rage" to boot. 'Tis easy to be a prophet in 
Eastern Virginia. She invents nothing, but slowly 
and reluctantly follows in the wake of less digni- 
fied, more fickle, and progressive regions. Go to 
England or the North, and you can foretell our 



TOWNS, RIVERS AND ROADS. 143 

condition ten years hence, as certainly as you can 
tell this season in Paris the fashion of ladies' bon- 
nets next season in America. We will monopo- 
lise the advantages of the system we oppose, for 
not more naturally and certainly do rivers bring 
detritus and alluvium from the mountains, to lodge 
them at their mouths and deltas, than do railroads 
bring the wealth of the interior to enrich the 
towns and country on the seaboard. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



EDUCATION. 



The abolitionists taunt us with, the ignorance 
of our poor white citizens. This is a stigma on 
the South that should be wiped out. Half of the 
people of the South, or nearly so, are blacks. 
We have only to educate the other half. At the 
North, they educate all. Our Southern free-trade 
philosophy, our favorite maxim, " every man for 
himself," has been the cause of the neglect of 
popular education. The civilized world differ from 
us and censure us. They say it is the first duty 
of government to provide for the education of all 
its citizens. Despotic Prussia compels parents to 
send their children to schools supported at public 
expense. All are educated and well educated. 
As our's is a government of the people, no where 
is education so necessary. The poor, too, ask no 
charity, when they demand universal education. 
They constitute our militia and our police. They 
protect men in possession of property, as in other 
countries ; and do much more, they secure men 
in possession of a kind of property which they 
could not hold a day but for the supervision and 
protection of the poor. This very property has 



EDUCATION. 145 

rendered the South merely agricultural, made 
population too sparse for neighborhood schools, 
prevented variety of pursuits, and thus cut the 
poor off as well from the means of living, as from 
the means of education. 

Universal suffrage will soon attempt to remedy 
these evils. But rashness and precipitancy may 
occasion failure and bring about despondency. 
We are not yet prepared to educate all. Free 
schools should at once be established in all neigh- 
borhoods where a sufficient number of scholars 
can be collected in one school. Parents should 
be compelled to send their children to school. 
The obligation on the part of government, to ed- 
ucate the people, carries with it the indubitable 
right to employ all the means necessary to attain 
that end. But the duty of government does not 
end with educating the people. As far as is 
practicable, it should open- to them avenues of em- 
ployment in which they may use what they have 
learned. The system of . internal improvements 
now carried on in the South, will directly and 
indirectly, quite suffice to attain this end, so far 
as government can aid properly in such an ob- 
ject. Government may do too much for the peo- 
ple, or it may do too little. We have committed 
the latter error. 

The mail and the newspaper-press might be 
employed, as cheap and efficient agents, in teach- 
er 



14G EDUCATION. 

ing the masses. No family in the Union is so dull, 
stupid and indifferent, as not to be curious about 
the news of the day. Cotemporaneous history is 
the most interesting and important part of his- 
tory. That is to be had alone from newspapers. 
But newspapers contain on all subjects the most 
recent discoveries, and the most valuable infor- 
mation. 

A large weekly newspaper might be furnished 
to every poor family in the State, at less than a 
dollar a family. If there were not a teacher with- 
in fifty miles, some member of each family would 
learn to read, first to get at the neighborhood 
news and scandals, the deaths, and marriages, 
and murders. Gradually they would understand 
and become interested in the proceedings of our 
government, and the news from foreign countries. 
The meanest newspaper in the country is worth 
all tKe libraries in Christendom. It is desirable 
to know what the ancients did, but it is neces- 
sary to know what our neighbors and fellow 
country-men are doing. 

Our system of improvements, manufactures, 
the mechanic arts, the building up of our cities, 
commerce, and education should go hand in hand. 
We ought not to attempt too much at once. 
'Tis time we were attempting something. We 
ought, like the Athenians, to be the best edu- 
cated people in the world. When we employ all 



EDUCATION. 147 

our whites in the mechanic arts, in commerce, in 
professions, &c, and confine the negroes to farm- 
work, and coarse mechanical operations, we shall 
be in a fair way to attain this result. The abo- 
lition movement is a harmless humbug, confined 
to a handful of fanatics, but the feeling of anti- 
pathy to negroes, the hatred of race, and the dis- 
position to expel them from the country is daily 
increasing, North and South. Two causes are in 
active operation to fan and increase this hostility 
to the negro race. The one, the neglect to edu- 
cate and provide means of employment for the 
poor whites in the South, who are thereby led to 
believe that the existence of negroes amongst us 
is ruin "to them. The other, the theory of the 
Types of Mankind, which cuts off the negro from 
human brotherhood, and justifies the brutal and 
the miserly in treating him as a vicious brute. 
Educate all Southern whites, employ them, not 
as cooks, lacqueys, ploughmen, and menials, but 
as independent freemen should be employed, and 
let negroes be strictly tied down to such callings 
as are unbecoming white men, and peace would 
be established between blacks and whites. The 
whites would find themselves elevated by the ex- 
istence of negroes amongst us. Like the Roman 
citizen, the Southern white man would become a 
noble and a privileged character, and he would then 
like negroes and slavery, because his high posi- 



148 EDUCATION. 

tion would be clue to them. Poor people can see 
things as well as rich people. We can't hide the 
facts from them. It is always better openly, 
honestly, and fearlessly to meet danger, than to 
fly from or avoid it. The last words we will 
litter on this subject are, — The path of safety is 
the path of duty ! Educate the people, no matter 
what it may cost ! 



CHAPTER XIV. 

EXCLUSIVE AGRICULTURE. 

Writing as we do, "with the hope of suggesting 
some things useful to the South, we deem the sub- 
ject of agriculture, their favorite and almost sole 
pursuit, one worthy of separate consideration, es- 
pecially as it is intimately connected with the 
doctrines of free trade. Agriculture can never 
be the exclusive pursuit of a civilized people, un- 
less by free trade, all other wants than those of 
food, are supplied from abroad. Man naturally 
gives a preference to agriculture over all other 
avocations, because it is the most simple and the 
most independent. This preference is greatly in- 
creased when the climate and soil are adapted to 
its pursuit. Such is the case in the Southern 
States, with the additional inducement in its fa- 
vor, that the laboring class, the negroes, are 
admirably fitted for farming, and too ignorant 
and dull for any of the finer processes of the 
mechanic arts. Hence the South has become al- 
most exclusively agricultural, and hence, also, she 
has ever been the advocate of free trade, which 
supplies the many wants that agriculture leaves 
unsupplied. 



150 EXCLUSIVE AGRICULTURE. 

The visual and familiar arguments in favor of 
this policy are, that it is cheaper to buy abroad 
good manufactured articles in exchange for agri- 
cultural products, than to buy them at home, 
where more indifferent articles would be obtained 
for a larger amount of agricultural products. 

And again, that we, having no skill or spare 
moneyed capital, but possessing a rich soil, fine 
climate, and suitable labor for farming, should 
follow farming, whilst other nations, without these 
advantages, but having a large moneyed capi- 
tal, and great artistic and mechanical skill, 
should produce manufactured articles, and ex- 
change them for our grain and other . products, 
that thus both we and they would be benefited. 
The argument is specious, but as false as it is 
specious. 

If an agricultural people were found without 
any manufactures, by a manufacturing one, the 
effect of free trade would be to prevent the in- 
vention and practice of all the mechanic arts, for 
" necessity is the mother of invention," and such 
trade would remove the necessity of home manu- 
factures. But, in truth, there never was a people, 
however savage, without some knowledge of man- 
ufactures and the mechanic arts. When that 
knowledge, as in the instances of Africans and 
Indians, is very slight, and the processes of course 
very tedious, laborious, and inefficient, the im- 



EXCLUSIVE AGRICULTURE. 151 

mediate effect of contact with a civilized nation 
by trade, is to extinguish the little knowledge 
they have, and to divert them to fishing, hunting, 
searching for gold and similar pursuits, which 
savages can practice almost as well as civilized 
men. The African ceases to smelt iron when he 
finds a day's work in hunting for slaves, iron or 
gold, will purchase more and better instruments 
than he could make in a week, and the Indian 
pursues trapping, and hunting, and fishing, ex- 
clusively, when he can exchange his game, his 
furs and fish, for blankets, guns, powder and 
whiskey, with the American. Thus does free trade 
prevent the growth of civilization and depress 
and destroy it, by removing the necessity that 
alone can beget it. Its effects on agricultural 
countries, however civilized, are precisely similar 
in character to those on savages. Necessity com- 
pels people in poor regions, to cultivate commerce 
and the mechanic arts, and for that purpose to 
build ships and cities. They soon acquire skill 
in manufactures, and all the advantages necessary 
to produce them with cheapness and facility. 
The agricultural people with whom they trade, 
have been bred to exclusive farming, by the sim- 
plicity of its operations, its independence of life, 
and the fertility of their soil. If cut off like 
China was, and Japan yet is, from the rest of the 
civilized world, they would have to practise at 



152 EXCLUSIVE AGRICULTURE. 

home all the arts, trades and professions of civi- 
lized life, in order to supply the wants of civilized 
beings. But trade will supply everything they 
need, except the products of the soil. As they 
are unskilled in mechanic arts, have few towns, 
little accumulated capital, and a sparse popula- 
tion, they produce, with great labor and expense, 
all manufactured articles. To them it is cheaper, 
at present, to exchange their crops for manufac- 
tures than to make them. They begin the ex- 
change, and each day the necessity increases for 
continuing it, for each day they learn to rely 
more and more on others to produce articles, 
some of which they formerly manufactured, — and 
their ignorance of all, save agriculture, is thus 
daily increasing. It is cheaper for a man, little 
skilled in mechanics, to buy his plough and 
wagon by the exchange of agricultural products, 
than awkwardly, clumsily and tediously to manu- 
facture them of bad quality with his own hands. 
Yet, if this same man will become a skilful me- 
chanic, he will be able to procure four times as 
much agricultural products for his labor, as he 
can now secure with his own hands. His labor 
too, will be of a lighter, less exposed, more social 
character, and far more improving to his mind. 
What is true of the individual, is true as to a 
nation, the people who buy their manufactures 
abroad, labor four times as hard, and as long, to 



EXCLUSIVE AGRICULTURE. 153 

produce them, as if they made them at home. 
In the case of the nation, this exclusive agri- 
culture begets a sparse and poor population ; sparse, 
because no more people can be employed, than 
are sufficient to cultivate the land, — poor, be- 
cause their labor, though harder and more ex- 
posed, produces in the aggregate about one-fourth 
what the same amount of lighter labor would, in 
a purely mechanical and manufacturing country. 
Density of population doubles and quadruples 
the value of labor and of property, because it fur- 
nishes the opportunity for association and divi- 
sion of labor, and the division of charges and ex- 
penses. When one man has to bear the expense 
of a school, a church, a mill, a store, a smith's 
shop, &c, he is very apt to let his family go with- 
out religion and education, and his farm without 
many of the necessaries and conveniences that 
properly appertain to it. Where a few have to 
bear these expenses, the burden on each is^very 
heavy, but where, as in manufacturing countries, 
with a dense population and many villages, these 
expenses are sub-divided among many, the bur- 
den is light to each, — so that their property and 
their labor is vastly more available and valuable. 
The sparsely settled agricultural country makes 
by its pursuits, one-fourth what the manufactur- 
ing country does, and the money that it makes is 
probably, in general, if spent at home, "[capable 



154 EXCLUSIVE AGRICULTURE. 

of purchasing one-half only of the pleasures, com- 
forts and luxuries of life that the same amount of 
money would in countries engaged in other pursuits. 
The pleasures of society are seldom indulged in, or 
if indulged in, at much expense of time and incon- 
venience, in merely farming countries, where peo- 
ple live at considerable distance from each other. 
There is no occasion for towns or cities, and not 
enough of the rich to support places of recrea- 
tion and amusement. The rich are, therefore, all 
absentees. Some go off for pleasure, some to 
religious conventions and associations, some for 
education, and those who remain at home, do so 
not to spend money and improve the country, but 
to save it, in order that they too may hereafter 
visit other regions. The latter class are no less 
absentees, in effect, than the former classes. 
The consumption abroad, of the crops made at 
home would, in two centuries, blast the prosperity 
of any country, by robbing it of the manures 
which nature intended for it. Where there are 
many manufacturing villages they furnish a con- 
stant supply of manure to the country around. 
The manure made from the farmer's crop, con- 
sumed in those villages, is returned to his soil, 
mixed with a thousand other fertilizing ingre- 
dients from the streets, sewers, and factories of 
the town. Thus only can agriculture flourish, 
and a soil be kept permanently rich. 



EXCLUSIVE AGRICULTURE. 155 

Few, very few men, will acquire education, or con- 
fer it on their children, unless some pecuniary ad- 
vantage is to result from it. The mass of popula- 
tion in farming countries are field hands. They 
require no education whatever, even if their 
wages would procure it. The managers or over- 
seers need but little, for much as agricultural 
chemistry and scientific farming are talked about, 
everybody's instinctive common sense and judg- . 
ment teaches, that they are part of the humbugs 
of the day. No person would employ an over- 
seer who was learned in the natural sciences. 
Botany, geology, chemistry, mineralogy, and na- 
tural history, do very well for the closet philoso- 
pher, but would be dangerous attainments in an 
overseer. The farmers of Judea, Egypt, Greece and 
Rome, two and four thousand years ago, were better 
than ours. Farming rapidly declined in Rome, 
so soon as Cato and others attempted to make it 
a science. The most potent qualities of soils and 
atmospheres evade all analysis. No difference is 
found in the death-dealing air of the Pontine 
Marshes, and the pure atmosphere of the Appe- 
nines. When fever, plague, or cholera rage in 
New Orleans, the minutest analysis can detect 
nothing in the air that was not there before, 
nothing which does not exist in it in the healthiest 
regions. Each adjoining acre of land may pro- 
duce wine or tobacco of very different qualities, 



156 EXCLUSIVE AGRICULTURE. 

yet no chemist can tell the why. Philosophy can- 
not prevent the weevil, the rust, or the joint 
worm. 

Chemists undertake to analyze exactly a grain 
of wheat, and to determine accurately and pre- 
cisely its component parts. Now, when they can 
make a grain of wheat, that will vegetate and 
grow and bear fruit, we will believe in agricul- 
tural chemistry. Till then, we shall contend that 
there is something too minute and recondite in 
vegetable life for mortal ken to read, and will 
throw their physic to the dogs. 

The great secrets of animal and vegetable life, 
and of their health, growth and decay, are in a 
great measure hidden from human search. Philo- 
sophy makes no advances in this direction. Galen 
and Hippocrates were as good physicians as the 
latest graduate of Edinburgh, and Cato as good 
a farmer as Mr. Newton. "A Paul may plant, 
and an Apollos water, but God alone can give 
the increase." 

Farming is the recreation of great men, the 
proper pursuit of dull men. And the dull are the 
most successful, because they imitate, observe, 
and never experiment. Washington and Cincin- 
natus farmed for amusement, George the Third 
and Sancho Panza, because it was their appro- 
priate avocation. Ambitious men sometimes, to 
hide their designs, and allay suspicion, rear game 



EXCLUSIVE AGRICULTURE. 157 

cocks, or " cultivate peas and philosophy." But 
farmers have no use for learning, and a farming 
country would not he a learned one if hooks grew 
on trees, and " reading and writing came hy na- 
ture." 

The population as it increases must emigrate, 
for the want of variety of pursuits, and more 
avenues of employment. A manufacturing State, 
if it can find agricultural people weak enough to 
trade with them, may sustain an enlightened pop- 
ulation indefinite in numhers, for the more dense 
the population, the better it is adapted for me- 
chanical and manufacturing pursuits. Internal 
improvements, like schools and colleges, cannot 
be well sustained in farming States, because the 
people are too few and too poor to make or sup- 
port them. 

Holland and Massachusetts are two of the rich- 
est, happiest, and most highly civilized States in 
the world, because they farm very little, but are en- 
gaged in more profitable and enlightened pursuits. 
The soil of Massachusetts is very poor, and that 
of Holland not adapted to grain. Ireland, the 
East and West Indies, and our Southern States. 
are poor and ignorant countries with rich soils. 
They farm altogether, and their rich and enter- 
prising and ambitious men desert them for pleas- 
ure, promotion, or employment, in lands less fa- 
vored by nature, but improved by man. 



158 EXCLUSIVE AGRICULTURE. 

The South must vary and multiply her pur- 
suits, consume her crops at home, keep her peo- 
ple at home, increase her population, build up 
cities, towns and villages, establish more schools 
and colleges, educate the poor, construct inter- 
nal improvements, carry on her own commerce, 
and carry on that if possible with more Southern 
\ regions : for the North, whether in Europe or 
here, will manufacture for, cheat her, and keep 
her dependent. She would manufacture for the 
far South, and get thus the same profits and ad- 
vantages that are now extracted from her by the 
North. Do these things and she will be rich, 
enlightened and independent, neglect them and 
she will become poor, weak and contemptible. 
Her State Rights doctrines will be derided, and 
her abstractions scoffed at. 

In connection with this subject, we will venture 
a suggestion to the South, (for Ave may not pre- 
sume to advise,) as to the intellectual progress 
and improvement which the mechanic arts, and 
those arts alone open to human study, investiga- 
tion and invention. We have just stated that 
the world has not improved in the last two thou- 
sand, probably four thousand years, in the science 
or practice of medicine, or agriculture; we now 
add that it has all this while been retrograding 
in all else save the physical sciences and the 
mechanic arts. Rome imitated and fell short of 



EXCLUSIVE AGMCULTUEE. 159 

Greece, in all the departments of moral philo- 
sophy, in pure metaphysics, in poetry, in archi- 
tecture, in sculpture, in oratory, in the drama? 
and in painting, and we to-day imitate Rome. It 
is idle to talk of progress, when we look two 
thousand years back for models of perfection. 
So vast was Grecian superiority in art above ours, 
that it is a common theory, that they possessed 
an ideal to guide them, which has been lost, and 
which loss is irreparable. The ancients under- 
stood the art, practice and science of government 
better than we. There was more intelligence, 
more energy, more learning, more happiness, more 
people, and more wealth, around the Levant, and 
in its islands, in the days of Herodotus, than are 
now to be found in all Europe. 

The only progress or advancement visible to 
the eye, is that brought about by the mechanic 
arts, aided by physical science. Chemistry and 
natural philosophy would have remained dead 
letters, had not the mechanic stepped in to con- 
struct the cannon and the gun, the compass, the 
steam engine, and the electric wire. Looking 
back through the vista of ages, the noblest and 
oldest monuments of human intellect and human 
energy are the works of the mechanic. Long ere 
the Muse lisped in liquid and melodious numbers, 
long before the buskined Drama trod the stage, 
long before the Historian in stately m^rch arrayed 



160 EXCLUSIVE AGRICULTURE. 

the dim and distant past, the Mechanic had built 
pyramids, and walls, and cities, and temples, that 
have defied the lapse and corrosion of time. We 
are at a loss which most to admire, the first ef- 
forts of his genius, his energy and skill, as daily 
developed at Nineveh, in Egypt, in Rome, and in 
Greece, or his latest achievements in his steam- 
ships, railroads, immense factories, and time and 
distance destroying telegraph. He looks into 
heaven with his telescope, he is omnipresent with 
his telegraph, may he not reach heaven in some 
serial car. Sic itiir ad astra ! Let the ambitious 
South cultivate, not spurn the mechanic arts. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE ASSOCIATION OF LABOR. 

If the Socialists had clone no other good, they 
would be entitled to the gratitude of mankind for 
displaying in a strong light the advantages of the 
association of labor. Adam Smith, in his elabo- 
rate treatise on the Division of Labor, nearly stum- 
bled on the same truth. But the division of labor 
is a curse to the laborer, -without the association 
of labor. Division makes labor ten times more 
efficient, but by confining each workman to some 
simple, monotonous employment, it makes him a 
mere automaton, and an easy prey to the capi- 
talist. The association of labor, like all associa- 
tions, requires a head or ruler, and that head or 
ruler will become a cheat and a tyrant, unless his 
interests are identified with the interests of the 
laborer. In a large factory, in free society, there 
is division of labor, and association too, but asso- 
ciation and division for the benefit of the employer 
and to the detriment of the laborer. On a large 
farm, whatever advances the health, happiness and 
morals of the negroes, renders them more prolific 
and valuable to their master. It is his interest to 
pay them high wages in way of support, and he 



162 THE ASSOCIATION OF LABOR. 

can afford to do so, because association renders the 
labor of each slave five times as productive and 
efficient as it would be, were the slaves working 
separately. One man could not enclose an acre 
of land, cultivate it, send his crops to market, do 
his own cooking, washing and mending. One man 
may live as a prowling beast of prey, but not as a 
civilized being. One hundred human beings, men, 
women and children, associated, will cultivate ten 
acres of land each, enclose it, and carry on every 
other operation of civilized life. Labor becomes 
at least twenty times as productive when a hun- 
dred associate, as when one acts alone. The same 
is as true in other pursuits as in farming. But in 
free society, the employer robs the laborer, and he 
is no better off than the prowling savage, although 
he might live in splendor if he got a fair propor- 
tion of the proceeds of his own labor. 

We have endeavored to show, heretofore, that 
the negro slave, considering his indolence and un- 
skilfulness, often gets his fair share, and sometimes 
more than his share, of the profits of the farm, 
and is exempted, besides, from the harassing cares 
and anxieties of the free laborer. Grant, however, 
that the negro does not receive adequate wages 
from his master, yet all admit that in the aggre- 
gate the negroes get better wages than free labor-' 
ers ; therefore, it follows that, with all its imper- 
fections, slave society is the best form of society 



THE ASSOCIATION OF LABOR. 163 

yet devised for the masses. When Socialists and 
Abolitionists, by full and fair experiments, exhibit 
a better, it will be -time to agitate the subject of 
abolition. 

The industrial products of black slave labor have 
been far greater and more useful to mankind, than 
those of the same amount of any other labor. In 
a very short period, the South and South-west 
have been settled, cleared, fenced in, and put in 
cultivation, by what were, a century ago, a handful 
of masters and slaves. This region now feeds and 
clothes a great part of mankind ; but free trade 
cheats them of the profits of their labor. In the 
vast amount of our industrial products, we see the 
advantages of association — in our comparative pov- 
erty, the evils of free trade. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE FREE LABORER'S CARES AND ANXIETIES. 

We think we have shown in the preceding chap- 
ter, not only that the physical condition of the free 
laborer is worse than that of the slave, but that 
its evils are intolerable. It is admitted and is 
proved to be so by the almost unanimous authority 
of rich and poor, learned and ignorant, living in 
the midst of free society. What is the mental 
condition of the free laborer ? Is he exempt from 
the cares that beset wealth and power, and plant 
thorns in the path of royalty ? 

Poor men have families as well as the rich, and 
they love those families more than rich men, be- 
cause they have little else to love. The smiles of 
their wives and the prattle of their children, when 
they return from labor at night, compensate, in 
some degree, for the want of those luxuries which 
greet the rich, but which render them less keenly 
alive to the pleasures of domestic affection. Their 
love is divided between their possessions and their 
families ; the poor man's love is intensely concen- 
trated on his wife and children. Wife and children 
do not always smile and prattle. Want makes them 
sad and serious. Cold and hunger and nakedness 



THE FREE LABORER'S CARES. 165 

give them haggard looks, and then the poor man's 
heart bleeds at night as he tosses on his restless 
pillow. They are often delicate and sometimes 
sick. The parent must go out to toil to provide 
for them, nevertheless. He cannot watch over their 
sick beds like the rich. Apprehension does not 
sweeten and lighten his labors. Nor does loss of 
rest in watching and nursing a sick wife or child 
better fit him to earn his wages the next day. The 
poor have not the cares of wealth, but the greater 
cares of being without it. They have no houses, 
know not when they may be turned out of rented 
ones, or when, or on what terms they may rent 
another. This must be looked to and provided for. 
The head of the family gets sick sometimes, too. 
Wages cease. Does it soothe fever and assuage 
pain to look at a destitute family, or to reflect 
on the greater destitution that awaits them, if he, 
the parent, should die ? Is he in health and get- 
ting good wages — the competition of fellow-laborers 
may any day reduce his wages or turn him out of 
employment. The poor free man has all the cares 
of the rich, and a thousand more besides. When 
the labors of the clay are ended, domestic anxieties 
and cares begin. The usual, the ordinary, the nor- 
mal condition of the whole laboring class, is that of 
physical suffering, cankering, corroding care, and 
mental apprehension and pain. The poor houses 
and poor rates prove this. The ragged beggar 



166 THE FREE LABORER'S 

children in the streets, and their suffering parents 
pining in cellars and garrets, attest it. Destitute 
France, poor Scotland, and starving Ireland pro- 
claim it. The concurrent testimony of all history 
and of all statistics, for three centuries, leave no 
room for cavil or for doubt. Why, in this age of 
progress, are the great majority of mankind, in 
free countries, doomed to live in penitential pains 
and purgatorial agony ? They, the artificers of 
every luxury, of every comfort, and every neces- 
sary of life, see the idle enjoying the fruits of their 
toil. Is there a just God in Heaven, and does he 
see, approve and ordain all this ? Has it ever 
been thus ? If so, God delights in human agony, 
and created man to punish him. All other ani- 
mals enjoy life, and did God make man after his 
own image, that life should be a pain and a tor- 
ture to him ? Bad as the laboring man's condi- 
tion is now, those who live in free society tell us 
it was far worse formerly. He used to be a slave, 
and they say slavery is a far worse condition to 
the laborer than liberty. "Well, for the argument, 
we grant it. His condition was worse throughout 
all past times in slavery, than now with liberty. 
Is it consistent with the harmony of nature, or 
the wisdom and mercy of God, that such a being 
should be placed in this world, and placed, too* 
at the head of it ? It is rank Diabolism to admit 
such a conclusion. None but Lucifer would have 
made such a world. 



CARES AND ANXIETIES. 167 

God made no such world ! He instituted slavery 
from the first, as lie instituted marriage and pa- 
rental authority. Profane, presumptuous, igno- 
rant man, in attempting to improve, has marred 
and defaced the work of his Creator. Wife and 
children, although not free, are relieved from care 
and anxiety,- supported and protected, and their 
situation is as happy and desirable as that of the 
husband and parent. In this we see the doings 
of a wise and just God. The slave, too, when 
the night comes, may lie down in peace. He has 
a master to watch over and take care of him. If 
he be sick, that master will provide for him. If 
his family be sick, his master and mistress sym- 
pathise with his affliction, and procure medical 
aid for the sick. And when he comes to die, he 
feels that his family will be provided for. He 
does all the labor of life ; his master bears all its 
corroding cares and anxieties. Here, again, we 
see harmonious relations, consistent with the wis- 
dom and mercy of God. "We see an equal and 
even-handed justice metecl out to all alike, and 
we see life itself no longer a terrestrial purgatory ; 
but a season of joy and sorrow to the rich and 
the poor. 

Man is naturally associative, because isolated 
and alone he is helpless. The object of all asso- 
ciations, from States to Temperance societies, is 
mutual insurance. Man does not feel the aclvan- 



168 THE FREE LABORER'S CARES. 

tage of State insurance, until he js driven to the 
poor house. House insurance companies and life 
insurance companies often fail ; and "when success- 
ful, only insure against a class of misfortunes. 
The insurance of Trade Unions, Odd Felloes, 
and Temperance societies, is -wholly inadequate. 
Slavery insurance never fails, and covers all losses 
and all misfortunes. Domestic slavery is nature's 
mutual insurance society ; art in vain attempts to 
imitate it, or to supply its place. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

LIBERTY AND FREE TRADE. 

These are convertible terms ; two names for the 
same thing. Statesmen, orators, and philosophers, 
the tories of England, and the whigs of America, 
have been laboring incessantly for more than half 
a century to refute the doctrine of free trade. 
They ail and each failed to produce a single plausi- 
ble argument in reply. Not one of their books or 
speeches survived a month. Not one ever was, or 
ever will be, quoted or relied on as authority to 
disprove the principles of political economy. The 
reason is obvious enough ; they were all confused 
by words, or afraid to make the proper issue. 
They first admitted liberty to be a good, and then 
attempted, but attempted in vain, to argue that 
free trade was an evil. The socialists stumbled 
on the true issue, but do not seem yet fully aware 
of the nature of their discovery. Liberty was the 
evil, liberty the disease under which society was suf- 
fering. Tt must be restricted, competition be ar- 
rested, the strong be restrained from, instead of en- 
couraged to oppress the weak — in order to restore 
society to a healthy state. To them we are indebt- 
ed for our argument against free trade. We have 

H 



170 LIBERTY AND FREE TRADE. 

extended it and explained its application. They 
demonstrated that social free trade was an evil, 
because it incited the rich and strong to oppress 
the weak, poor and ignorant. We saw that the 
disparities of mental strength were greater be- 
tween races and nations than between individuals 
in the same society. History spoke less equivo- 
cally as to the ruinous effects of international 
free trade, than as to those of social free trade. 

Events are occurring every day, especially at 
the North, that show that religious liberty must be 
restricted as well as other liberty. 

Chinese idolaters are coming in swarms too, to 
California. If they are to be permitted to prac- 
tise their diabolical rights, the negroes should be 
allowed to revert to the time-honored customs of 
their ancestors, and immolate human victims to 
their devil deity. Mormonism is still a worse re- 
ligious evil, which we have to deal with. 

Liberty is an evil which government is intended 
to correct. This is the sole object of government. 
Taking these premises, it is easy enough to re- 
fute free trade. Admit liberty to be a good, and 
you leave no room to argue that free trade is an 
evil, — because liberty is free trade. 

"With thinking men, the question can never arise, 
who ought to be free ? Because no one ought to 
be free. All government is slavery. The pro- 
per subject of investigation for philosophers and 
philanthropists is, " Is the existing mode of gov- . 



LIBERTY AND FREE TRADE. 171 

eminent adapted to the wants of its subjects ?" 
No one will contend that negroes, for instance, 
should roam at large in puris naturalibus, with the 
apes and tigers of Africa, and " worry and de- 
vour each other." Nor are they fitted for an 
Athenian democracy. What form of government 
short of domestic slavery will suit their wants 
and capacities ? That is the true issue, and we 
direct the attention of abolitionists to it. They 
are now striking wild, and often hit the Bible, 
and marriage tie, and the right of property, and 
the duties of children to their parents and guar- 
dians, harder blows, than they do negro slavery. 
They are mere anarchists and infidels. If they 
would take our advice, they would appear more 
respectable, do less harm, and might suggest some 
good. For domestic slavery like all human insti- 
tutions, has its imperfections — will always have 
them. Yet it is our duty to correct such as can 
be corrected, and we would do so, if the aboli- 
tionists would let us alone, or advise with us as 
friends, neighbors and gentlemen. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

HEAD-WORK AND HAND-WORK, 

Parents often warn their children, that they 
must live by hand-work or- head-work. That the 
latter is far preferable, because the work is lighter, 
pays much better, and is generally in far higher 
esteem with the world. Virtue, intelligence and 
good education are necessary to success in the 
latter. No man cares much what the character 
of his ditcher or ploughman is, but his merchant, 
his lawyer, his mechanics, and his physician must 
be men of good sense and good morals. Thus 
do parents hold out incentives to virtuous exer- 
tion. Governors and rulers should do the same. 
States must live by hand-work or head-work. The 
production of books on the various arts and 
sciences, and on other subjects, the manufacture 
of fine silks, woolens, calicoes, shawls, the mak- 
ing of exquisite porcelain, the building of ships, 
and steamboats, the construction of machinery, 
and a thousand other pursuits that we could enu- 
merate, require intelligence and attainments of 
the highest order, and good character besides, 
else no one would buy what would probably be a 
cheat or a counterfeit. A nation chiefly engaged 



HEAD-WORK AND HAND-WORK. 173 

in such pursuits, follows head-work, works within 
doors, labors lightly, and makes five times as much 
as one engaged in the coarsest occupations of 
mere hand-work. There cannot be a surplus pop- 
ulation with such a people, because they have the 
world for a market to buy and sell in, and the 
more dense and numerous the population, the 
better opportunities are afforded for the associa- 
tion and division of labor, which increase its pro- 
ductiveness and lighten its burdens. 

The very reverse of ail this has been, till lately, 
the policy and practice of the South, inculcated 
and encouraged by her so called philosophers and 
statesmen. She has pursued the very lowest and 
coarsest hand-work, — work which required neither 
character nor intelligence, and which shut out the 
light of education, by rendering education unne- 
cessary, or when necessary, making it impractica- 
ble from the sparseness of population. She has 
worked hard and been badly paid. On an aver- 
age, the products of four hours of her hand work 
are exchanged for the results of one hour of such 
light work as we first described. 

Peoples and individuals must live by hand-work, 
or head-work, and those who live by head-work 
are always, in fact, the masters of those who live 
by hand-work. They take the products of their 
labor without paying an equivalent in equal labor. 
The hand-work men and nations are slaves in fact, 



174 HEAD-WORK AND HAND-WORK. 

because they do not get paid for more than one- 
fourth of their labor. The South has, hereto- 
fore, worked three hours for Europe and the 
North, and one for herself. It is one of the 
beautiful results of free trade. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE AND VIRGINIA 
BILL OF RIGHTS. 

An essay on the subject of slavery would be 
very imperfect, if it passed over without noticing 
these instruments. The abstract principles which 
they enunciate, we candidly admit, are wholly at 
war with slavery ; we shall attempt to show that 
they are equally at war with all government, all 
subordination, all order. Men's minds were heated 
and blinded when they were written, as well by 
patriotic zeal, as by a false philosophy, which, be- 
ginning with Locke, in a refined materialism, had 
ripened on the Continent into open infidelity. In 
England, the doctrine of prescriptive government, 
of the divine right of kings, had met with sig- 
nal overthrow, and in France there was faith in 
nothing, speculation about everything. The hu- 
man mind became extremely presumptuous, and 
undertook to form governments on exact philoso- 
phical principles, just as men make clocks, watches 
or mills. They confounded the moral with the 
physical world, and this was not strange, because 
they had begun to doubt whether there was any 
other than a physical world. Society seemed to 



176 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

them a thing whose movement and action could 
be controlled with as much certainty as the mo- 
tion of a spinning wheel, provided it was organ- 
ized on proper principles. It would have been 
less presumptuous in them to have attempted to 
have made a tree, for a tree is not half so com- 
plex as a society of human beings, each of whom 
is fearfully and wonderfully compounded of soul 
and body, and whose aggregate, society, is still 
more complex and difficult of comprehension than 
its individual members. Trees grow and man 
may lop, trim, train and cultivate them, and thus 
hasten their growth, and improve their size, 
beauty and fruitfulness. Laws, institutions, so- 
cieties, and governments grow, and men may aid 
their growth, improve their strength and beauty, 
and lop off their deformities and excrescences, by 
punishing crime and rewarding virtue. When 
society has worked long enough, under the hand 
of God and nature, man observing its operations, 
may discover its laws and constitution. The 
common law of England and the constitution of 
England, were discoveries of this kind. Fortu- 
nately for us, we adopted, with little change, that 
common law and that constitution. Our institu- 
tions and our ancestry were English. Those in- 
stitutions were the growth and accretions of many 
ages, not the work of legislating philosophers. 



AND VIRGINIA BILL OF RIGHTS. 177 

The abstractions contained in the various in- 
struments on which we professed, but professed 
falsely, to found our governments, did no harm, 
because, until abolition arose, they remained a 
dead letter. Now, and not till now, these abstrac- 
tions have become matters of serious practical 
importance, and we propose to give some of them 
a candid, but fearless examination. We find these 
words in the preamble and Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, 

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, 
that all men are created equal; that they 
are endowed by their Creator with certain ina- 
lienable rights, that among them, are life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness ; that to secure 
these rights governments are instituted among 
men, deriving their just powers from the consent 
of the governed ; that whenever any form of gov- 
ernment becomes destructive of these ends it is 
the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and 
to institute a new government, laying its foun- 
dations on such principles, and organizing its 
powers in such form, as to them shall seem most 
likely to effect their safety and happiness. " 

It is, we believe, conceded on all hands, that men 
are not born physically, morally or intellectually 
equal, — some are males, some females, some from 
birth, large, strong and healthy, others weak, 
small and sickly — some are naturally amiable, 



178 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

others prone to all kinds of wickednesses — some 
brave, others timid. Their natural inequalities 
beget inequalities of rights. The weak in mind 
or body require guidance, support and protection ; 
they must obey and work for those who protect 
and guide them — they have a . natural right to 
guardians, committees, teachers or masters. Na- 
ture has made them slaves ; all that law and gov- 
ernment can do, is to regulate, modify and miti- 
gate their slavery. In the absence of legally in- 
stituted slavery, their condition would be worse 
under that natural slavery of the weak to the 
strong, the foolish to the wise and cunning. The 
wise and virtuous, the brave, the strong in mind 
and body, are by nature born to command and 
protect, and law but follows nature in making 
them rulers, legislators, judges, captains, husbands, 
guardians, committees and masters. The natu- 
rally^ depraved class, those born prone to crime, 
are our brethren too : they are entitled to edu- 
cation, to religious instruction, to all the means 
and appliances proper to correct their evil propen- 
sities,^and all their failings; they have a right to be 
sent to the penitentiary, — for there, if they do 
not reform, they cannot at least disturb society. 
Our feelings, and our consciences teach us, that 
nothing but necessity can justify taking human 
life. 

We are but stringing together truisms, which 
every body knows as well as ourselves, and yet 



AXD VIRGINIA BILL OF RIGHTS. 179 

if men are created unequal in all these respects, 
"what truth or what meaning is there in the pas- 
sage under consideration ? Men are not created 
or born equal, and circumstances, and education, 
and association, tend to increase and aggravate 
inequalities among them, from generation to gen- 
eration. Generally, the rich associate and in- 
termarry with each other, the poor do the same ; 
the ignorant rarely associate with or intermarry 
with the learned, and all society shuns contact 
with the criminal, even to the third and fourth 
generations. 

Men are not "born entitled to equal rights!" 
It would be far nearer the truth to say, "that 
some were born with saddles on their backs, and 
others booted and spurred to ride them," — and 
the riding does them good. They need the reins, 
the bit and the spur. No two men by nature are 
exactly equal or exactly alike. No institutions 
can prevent the few from acquiring rule and as- 
cendency over the many. Liberty and free com- 
petition invite and encourage the attempt of the 
strong to master the weak ; and insure their suc- 
cess. 

"Life and liberty" are not "inalienable;" they 
have been sold in all countries, and in all ages, 
and must be sold so long as human nature lasts. 
It is an inexpedient and unwise, and often un- 
merciful restraint, on a man's liberty of action, to 



180 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

deny him the right to sell himself when starv- 
ing, and again to buy himself when fortune 
smiles. Most countries of antiquity, and some, 
like China at the present day, allowed such sale 
and purchase. The great object of government 
is to restrict, control and punish man "in the 
pursuit of happiness." All crimes are committed 
in its pursuit. Under the free or competitive 
system, most men's happiness consists in destroy- 
ing the happiness of other people. This, then, is 
no inalienable right. 

The author of the Declaration may have, and 
probably did mean, that ail men were created 
with an equal title to property. Carry out such 
a doctrine, and it would subvert every government 
on earth. 

In practice, in all ages, and in all countries, 
men had sold their liberty either for short periods, 
for life, or hereditarily; that is, both their own 
liberty and that of their children after them. The 
laws of all countries have, in various forms and 
degrees, in all times recognised and regulated 
this right to alien or sell liberty. The soldiers 
and sailors of the revolution had aliened both 
liberty and life, the wives in all America had 
aliened their liberty, so had the apprentices and 
wards at the very moment this verbose, new- 
born, false and unmeaning preamble was written. 



AND VIRGINIA BILL OF RIGHTS. 181 

Mr. Jefferson was an enthusiastic speculative 
philosopher; Franklin was wise, cunning and judi- 
cious; he made no objection to the Declaration, 
as prepared by Mr. Jefferson, because, probably, 
he saw it would suit the occasion and supposed it 
would be harmless for the future. But even 
Franklin was too much of a physical philosopher, 
too utilitarian and material in his doctrines, to 
be relied on in matters of morals or government. 
"We may fairly conclude, that liberty is alienable, 
that there is a natural right to alien it, first, be- 
cause the laws and institutions of all countries 
have recognized and regulated its alienation; and 
secondly, because we cannot conceive of a civilized 
society, in which there were no wives, no wards, 
no apprentices, no sailors and no soldiers ; and 
none of these could there be in a country that 
practically carried out the doctrine, that liberty 
is inalienable. 

The soldier who meets death at the cannon's 
mouth, does so because he has aliened both life 
and liberty. Nay, more, he has aliened the pur- 
suit of happiness, else he might desert on the eve 
of battle, and pursue happiness in some more 
promising quarter than the cannon's mouth. If 
the pursuit of happiness be inalienable, men 
should not be punished for crime, for all crimes 
are notoriously committed in the pursuit of hap- 
piness. If these abstractions have some hidden 



182 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

and cabalistic meaning, -which none but the ini- 
tiated can comprehend, then the Declaration 
should have been accompanied with a translation, 
and a commentary to fit it for common use, — as 
it stands, it deserves the tumid yet appropriate epi- 
thets which Major Lee somewhere applies to the 
writings of Mr. Jefferson, it is, " exhuberantly 
false, and arbor escently fallacious." 

Nothing can be found in all history more un- 
philosophical, more presumptuous, more character- 
istic of the infidel philosophy of the 18th century, 
than the language that follows that of which we 
have been treating. How any observant man, 
however unread, should have come to the conclu- 
sion, that society and government were such plas- 
tic, man-created things, that starting on certain 
general principles, he might frame them success- 
fully as he pleased, we are at a loss to conceive. 
But infidelity is blind and foolish, and infidelity 
then prevailed. Lay your foundations of govern- 
ment on what principles you please, organize its 
powers in what form you choose, and you cannot 
foresee the results. You can only tell what laws, 
institutions and governments will effect, when you 
apply them to the same race or nation under the 
same circumstances in which they have already 
been tried. But philosophy then was in the chry- 
salis state. She has since deluged the world with 
blood, crime and pauperism. She has had full 



AND VIRGINIA BILL OF RIGHTS. 183 

sway, and has inflicted much misery, and done no 
good. The world is beginning to be satisfied, that 
it is much safer and better, to look to the past, 
to trust to experience, to follow nature, than to 
be guided by the ignis fatuus of a 'priori specu- 
lations of closet philosophers. If all men had 
been created equal, all would have been competi- 
tors, rivals, and enemies. Subordination, differ- 
ence of caste and classes, difference of sex, age 
and slavery beget peace and good will. 

We were only justified in declaring our inde- 
pendence, because we were sufficiently wise, nu- 
merous and strong to govern ourselves, and too 
distant and distinct from England to be well gov- 
erned by her. 

Moses and Confucius, Solon, Lycurgus and 
English Alfred, were Reformers, Revisors of the 
Code. They, too, were philosophers, but too pro- 
found to mistake the province of philosophy and 
attempt to usurp that of nature. They did not frame 
government on abstract principles, they indulged 
in no u ci priori" reasoning; but simply lopped off 
what was bad, and retained, modified and simplified 
what was good in existing institutions — 

"And that's as high, 
As metaphysic wit can fly." 

The first clause of the Bill of Rights of Vir- 
ginia, contains language of like import with that 
which we have been criticising. The fourth clause 



184 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

is in the following words : — " That no man or set of 
men are entitled to exclusive or separate privileges 
from the rest of the community, but in consider- 
ation of public services : which not being discendi- 
ble, neither ought the offices of magistrate, legis- 
lator or judge, to be hereditary.'' This is very 
bad English and is so obscurely expressed, that 
we can only guess at the meaning intended to be 
conveyed. We suppose, that " exclusive or sepa- 
rate emoluments and privileges," was intended to 
apply to such harmless baubles as titles of nobil- 
ity and coats of arms, and to petty ill-paid offi- 
cers, and that the author never dreamed that here- 
ditary property, however large, was a " separate 
emolument or privilege." 

The author saw no objection to the right se- 
cured by law to hold five hundred subjects or 
negro slaves, and ten thousand acres of land, to 
the exclusion of everybody else, and to trans- 
mit them to one's children and grand-children, 
although an exclusive hereditary privilege far 
transcending any held by the nobility of Eu- 
rope, — for the nobility of Russia do not hold 
such despotic sway over their serfs, as we do 
over our negroes, and are themselves mere slaves 
to the Emperor, whilst our slaveholders have 
scarcely any authority above them. We have 
no doubt the author, like our modern far- 
mers, considered this "a mere circumstance," 



AND VIRGINIA BILL OF RIGHTS. 185 

and would have told you that a man has a na- 
tural right to his lands and negroes, a natural 
right to what belonged to his father. 

Property is not a natural and divine, but con- 
ventional right ; it is the mere creature of so- 
ciety and law. In this all lawyers and publicists 
agree. In this country, the history of property 
is of such recent date, that the simplest and most 
ignorant man must know, that it commenced in 
wrong, injustice and violence a few generations 
ago, and derives its only title now from the will 
of society through the sanction of law. Society 
has no right, because it is not expedient, to re- 
sume any one man's property because he abuses 
its possession, and does not so employ it as to 
redound to public advantage, — but if all private 
property, or if private property generally were 
so used as to injure, instead of promote public 
good, then society might and ought to destroy the 
whole institution. 

From these premises, it follows that government, 
in taxing private property, should only be limited 
by the public good. If the tax be so heavy as to 
deter the owner from improving the property, then, 
in general, will the whole public be injured. 

False notions of the right of property, and of 
the duties and liabilities of property holders, de- 
stroy all public spirit and patriotism, cripple and 
injure, and prevent the growth and development 



186 DECLABATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

of the South. We feel it our duty to deflect a 
little from our subject to expose these errors. 

Now, a natural right is a " divine right," and 
if we Southern farmers have a divine right to 
our little realms and subjects, is it not hard to 
dispute the like right in sovereigns, on a larger 
scale. The world discovered that the power of 
kings was a trust power conferred on them for 
the good of the people, and to be exercised 
solely for that purpose — or else forfeited. Are 
we guilty of treason in suggesting that farmers 
have no better titles than kings, and that the law 
vests them with separate property in lands and 
negroes, under the belief and expectation that 
such separate property will redound more to pub- 
lic advantage than if all property were in com- 
mon ? We have an aristocracy with more of 
privilege, and less of public spirit, than any that 
we meet with in history. Less of public spirit, 
because they cherish that free trade philosophy 
which inculcates selfishness as a moral and politi- 
cal duty, which teaches that the public good is best 
promoted when nobody attends to public affairs, 
but each one is intent on his own private ends. 
Naturally, Southerners, like all slaveholders, are 
liberal and public spirited. It is their philosophy 
that has taken away their patriotism. Accord- 
ing to the sense in which the term " public ser- 
vices" is used, meaning, no doubt, official services, 



AND VIRGINIA BILL OF RIGHTS. 187 

in the Bill of Rights, no farmer could hold his 
lands and negroes a day, for they have not ren- 
dered public services as a consideration for their 
great, " exclusive and separate emolument and 
privilege.'' 

Institutions are what men can see, feel, ven- 
erate and understand. The institutions of Moses 
and of Alfred remain to this day, those of Numa 
and Lycurgus had a long and flourishing life. 
These sages laid down no abstract propositions, 
founded their institutions on no general princi- 
ples, had no written constitutions. They were 
wise from experience, adopted w T hat history and 
experience had tested, and never trusted to a 
priori speculations, like a More, a Locke, a Jef- 
ferson, or an Abbe Sieyes. Constitutions should 
never be written till several centuries after gov- 
ernments have been instituted, for it requires that 
length of time to ascertain how institutions will 
operate. No matter how you define and limit, 
in words, the powers and duties of each depart- 
ment of government, they will each be sure to 
exercise as much power as possible, and to en- 
croach to the utmost of their ability on the powers 
of other departments. When the Commons were 
invoked to Parliament, the king had no idea they 
would usurp the taxing powers ; but having suc- 
cessfully done so, it became part of the English 
constitution, that the people alone could tax them- 



188 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

selves. It was never intended that ninety-nine 
guilty should escape, socner than one innocent 
man be punished ; yet, finding that the result of 
the English judicial system, the judges and law- 
yers made a merit of necessity, and adopted it 
as a maxim of the common law. So, in a hundred 
instances we could show, that in England a con- 
stitution means the modus operandi of institutions, 
not prescribed, but ascertained from experience. 
In this country we shall soon have two constitu- 
tions, that a priori thing which nobody regards, 
and that practical constitution deduced from ob- 
servation of the workings of our institutions. — 
Whigs disregard our written constitution, when 
banks, tariffs or internal improvements are in 
question ; Democrats respect it not when there 
is a chance to get more territory; and Young 
America, the dominant party of the day, will 
jump through its paper obstructions with as much 
dexterity as harlequin does through the hoop. 
State governments, and senators, and represen- 
tatives, and militia, and cities, and churches, and 
colleges, and universities, and landed property, 
are institutions. Things of flesh and blood, that 
know their rights, "and knowing dare maintain 
them." We should cherish them. They will give 
permanence to government, and security to State 
Rights. But the abstract doctrines of nullification 
and secession, the general principles laid down 



AND VIRGINIA BILL OF RIGHTS. 189 

in the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of 
Rights, and Constitution of the United States, 
afford no protection of rights, no valid limita- 
tions of power, no security to State Rights. The 
power to construe them, is the power to nullify 
them. Mere paper guarantees, like the constitu- 
tions of Abbe Sieyes, are as worthless as the 
paper on which they are written. 

Our institutions, founded on such generalities 
and abstractions as those of which we are treat- 
ing, are like a splendid edifice built upon kegs of 
gunpowder. The abolitionists are trying to apply 
the match to the explosive materials under our 
Parliament House ; we are endeavoring to anti- 
cipate them by drenching those materials with ridi- 
cule. No body deems them worth the trouble of 
argument, or the labor of removal. They will 
soon become incombustible and innocuous. 

Property is too old and well-tried an institution, 
too much interwoven with the feelings, interests, 
prejudices and affections of man, to be shaken by 
the speculations of philosophers. It is only its 
maladministration that can endanger it. So far 
from wishing to shake or undermine property, we 
would, for the public good, give it more perma- 
nence. We do not like the Western Homestead 
provision of forty acres, because that entails on 
families poverty and ignorance, and tends to de- 
press civilization. We do not like the large en- 



190 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

tails of England, because they beget an idle, 
useless and vicious aristocracy. But lands do 
not breed as men do, and we can see no good pub- 
lic reason for cutting up small farms, at the end 
of each generation, and thus preventing good and 
permanent improvements, and incurring the oft-re- 
peated labor of making new enclosures, and new but 
Blight buildings. For public good, and property 
ought to be administered for public good, it would 
be better to have some law of primogeniture where 
the lands were of a convenient size to keep to- 
gether. A law entailing farms of such amount 
as would educate families well, without putting 
them above the necessity of industry and exer- 
tion, would add much to national wealth, in en- 
couraging good and permanent improvements, 
and would improve national character and intel- 
ligence, by securing a class of well educated men, 
attached to the soil and the country. We need 
not fear the mad dog cry of aristocracy ; a man 
with an entailed estate of five hundred acres, and 
a coat of arms to boot, would not be a very dan- 
gerous character. Whilst men with twenty thou- 
sand acres of illy cultivated lands and five hun- 
dred idle negroes, or bankers wielding five mil- 
lions, all of which they may entail or settle in their 
families for generations to come, are to all intents 
and purposes, as good aristocrats as any German 
Princes. We have the things, exclusive heredi- 



AND VIRGINIA BILL OF RIGHTS. 191 

tary privileges and aristocracy, amongst us, in 
their utmost intensity; let us not be frightened at 
the names; but so mould our institutions, regard- 
less of prejudices, technicalities, names, or titles, 
as will best promote, "the greatest good of the 
greatest number." 

Too much insecurity of property invites to ex- 
travagance and speculation, and prevents refine- 
ment and continued progress. Property should 
remain several generations in a family to beget 
learning, skill, and high moral qualifications. 

Lands divided minutely, depress all pursuits ; 
for small farms want only coarse and cheap arti- 
cles, quack doctors, illiterate parsons, and igno- 
rant attorneys. When farms are too large, they 
occasion a sparse population, absenteeism of the 
rich, and a sort of colonial or plantation life. 
Either extreme is equally to be avoided, and, 
therefore, the State should determine the amount 
of land subject to the laws of primogeniture and 
entail. Such laws might be enacted without any 
shock to existing titles, and would vastly enhance 
the value of our lands. People who are tired, 
(and half the world is.) of the too frequent ups 
and downs of American life, would rush to Vir- 
ginia to invest their money. If other States did 
not follow our example, Virginia would, in five 
years, be the first State in wealth and intelli- 
gence in the Union. If such arrangement be best 



192 DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

for all society, then it is the most democratic 
arrangement, for it is the essence of democracy 
to consult the good of the whole. Landed pro- 
perty thus held, would become an institution at- 
taching its owners to our government. Patriotism 
and love of country, virtues now unknown at the 
South, would prevail, and give permanence and 
security to society. 

No great advantages accrue to society, either 
in wealth, morals, or intelligence, by the frequent 
change of property from hand to hand, and from 
family to family. Lands would become useless, if 
minutely divided between all the members of the 
community. The law now devolves lands in case 
of intestacy on all a man's children. The law r s 
of most countries have devolved them on the 
male children, or on one child. None have a 
natural right to them. If it be expedient that 
they should descend to one child, and be con- 
tinued in the family, there is nothing in natural 
justice or equity to oppose the arrangement. 
Five hundred acres of land and thuty negroes, 
would suffice to educate all the younger members 
of the family, and make useful citizens of them. 
Primogeniture and entails have had this good ef- 
fect in England. The younger sons have filled 
the professions, the church, the army, and the 
navy, with able, ambitious men. It has furnished 
London and Liverpool with the best merchants in 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, AC. 193 

the world, and made trade one of the most hon- 
orable professions. 

It is pleasing to see the poor acquiring lands, 
but the pleasure is more than balanced, with all 
save the malicious, by seeing the rich stripped of 
them. Those accustomed to poverty, suffer little 
from it. Those who have been rich, are misera- 
ble when they become poor. 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE MARRIAGE RELATION. 

The Roman dwelling was a holy and sacred 
place ; a temple of the gods, over which Manes, 
and Lares, and Penates watched and hovered. 
Each hearthstone was an altar on which daily 
sacrifice was offered. The family was hedged all 
round with divinities, with departed ancestry puri- 
fied and apotheosised, who with kindly interest 
guarded and guided the household. Roman ele- 
vation of sentiment and of character is easily 
accounted for, when we reflect that they felt 
themselves ever in the presence of deities. That 
pure religious sentiment was associated with 
these deities, a single passage from Virgil will 
prove. iEneas, on that night that Troy was 
sacked, forced at length to fly with his family, 
does not forget in his haste and confusion, the 
family gods. 

Tu, genitor, cape Fa era manu, patriosque Penates. 
Me, bello e tanto digressum, et caide recenti 
Attrectare nefas: donee me flumine vivo 
Abluero. 

The Catholic Church did much to preserve the 
sanctity and purity of the family circle, by making 



THE MAKRIAGE RELATION. 196 

rriage a i sacrament : the Episcopal 

something in making it a holy ordinance ; 
. in its ritual, which reminded bhe parties of 

the solemn and sacred engagements into which 

thev were about to enter. E: :~. equality 

and fraternity advanced, it was reduced, at the 

free North, to a mere civil contract, entered into 

with no more thought, ceremony or solemnity than 

the bargain for a horse. ; tot sully our 

sheet with descriptions d£ the marriage relation 

it often presents itself now. even in good society 

in free Europe and in free America. Shakers, 

and Oneida Perfectionists and Mormc the 

legitimate fruits of modern progress. Surely 

women ought to be free as well as negroes. In 

Utah, (the high; latest result of liberty, 

~. and fraternity,) the family dwelling, 

which in heathen Rome was a temple of the 

Gods, has been converted into a den of prosti- 

Vhat a rise, from pious and pagan 

JEne: , tc Bi . Yankee Christian 

and newest fashion ! 



CHAPTER XXI. 

THE MORALS OF FP.EE SOCIETY. 

Let heav'n kiss earth ! Now let not nature's hand 
Keep the wild flood coniin'd ! let order die ! 
And let this world no longer be a stage, 
To feed contention in a lingering act; 
But let one spirit of the first-born Cain 
Reign in all bosoms, that each heart being set 
On bloody courses, the rude scene may end 
And darkness be the burier of the dead ! 

Second Part of King Henry TV. 

" Liberty, Equality and Fraternity/' is the 
motto and watchword of Frenchmen when they 
turn out to murder each other wholesale. They 
are an epigramatic people, and have a happy way 
of condensing into a phrase or maxim, a whole 
code of philosophy. The same idea had been 
floating in men's minds ever since the Reformation 

"What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed." 

It had borne, too, everywhere the same fruits. 
The seventy years' wars in Germany are further 
off in time and distance than the French Revo- 
lution, but were quite as prolific of murder, rape 
and -rapine, as those amiable events themselves. 
They were the first exhibitions on a large scale, 
of the new philosophy of Liberty, Equality and 



THE MORALS OF FREE SOCIETY. 197 

Fraternity. The revocation of the edict of Nan- 
tes, and the Vespers of St. Bartholemew, wsre 
small events compared to the days of the Guillo- 
tine ; but nevertheless, they were highly respec- 
table and intense expressions of that fraternity 
which nascent liberty was begetting. The Gun- 
powder plot, too, but for an unlucky contre temps, 
would have resulted in a very strong expression 
of the affectionate brotherly interest which men 
feel for one another's well being, both in this 
world and the world to come. Shortly thereafter, 
when liberty openly reared her standard, and 
Cromwell burnt houses, and Sir Thomas Lunsford 
ate babies, men began to believe that the world 
was really blessed with the millenial advent of 
Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Charles and 
Jeffries put a stop to it for a while: yet to- 
wards the later part of his reign, Charles wisely 
resolved to give a holy day, and indulge his people 
with a bloody carnival. The little Titus Oates 
affair that followed, showed that men's affections 
for each other had not at all abated, and were 
ready to exhibit themselves in the most passionate 
manner, whenever the restraints of government 
were removed. 

Our Pilgrim fathers being denied the opportu- 
nity of practicing to its full extent the divine 
precept — "Love thy neighbor as thyself" — re- 
moved to America, and here proved to the world 



198 THE MORALS OP FREE SOCIE1T. 

that they had not degenerated since the unctuous 
days of Knox and of Cromwell. Many tokens 
of their zeal and affection were soon seen pendant 
from the elms of New England ; and with a deli- 
cate discrimination, that affection selected the 
ugliest and oldest of the weaker sex, on whom to 
lavish its embraces. 

Has the world "supped full with horrors," or 
a mere caprice of fashion brought about new 
modes of manifesting; attachment? Frenchmen 
kiss and hug, Americans shake hands, and Eng- 
lishmen scowl and bow ; yet they all mean the 
same thing — 'tis fashion rules the hour. So it 
may be that cheating raid starving our fellow 
beings is now the rage, instead of shooting and 
burning them. Those three hundred thousand 
starved in Ireland, show clearly enough that Lib- 
erty, Equality and Fraternity have lost none of 
their energy, however much they may have quieted 
their manners. " Nil admirari" is the perfection 
of good breeding in England, and a real gentleman 
would sooner cheat in a horse trade than express 
sympathy for the millions who are pining with 
hunger and nakedness in the fields and factories 
and mines of old England. 

We should do gross injustice to our own fellow 
countrymen if we failed to notice a little "Love 
Feast" that occurred a few days ago in St. Louis. 
The killed and wounded would have been a trifle 



THE MORALS OF FREE SOCIETY. 199 

in Paris, but did pretty well for new beginners. It 
was a genteel and select affair, for not a negro 
was permitted to fraternise. Generally, these af- 
fairs are decidedly vulgar in America, in conse- 
quence of the great love of the Northern folk for 
the negroes. In Philadelphia and Cincinnati, some 
little Love Feasts have been enacted for the benefit 
of our black brethren, who, when the feasts were 
over, found themselves stript of clothes and trow- 
sers — sans eyes, sans ears, sans teeth, sans every 
thing. These, and other striking evidences of 
brotherly interest, such as brick-bats and glass 
bottles, leave Sambo no room to doubt that he is 
a peculiar favorite, — yet Sambo, who is a quiet 
body, is getting heartily tired of such rough romp- 
ing and hard love-licks. 

Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, culminated 
when the Goddess of Eeason usurped the seat 
and the sceptre of Deity, and sent forth her high 
priests, Danton, Marat, St. Just and Robespierre, 
"to deal damnation round the land!" The de- 
monstration was then complete. Man without 
government, without order, without subordination, 
without religion, without slavery in its every form, 
from the prison house, the straight jacket, the 
army, the navy, serfdom, up to the slavery of 
mere subjection to law, without all those restraints 
which his peculiar wants and capacities required, 
was the cruellest and wildest beast of the field. 



200 THE MORALS OF FREE SOCIETY. 

It proved that a state of nature was not a state 
of liberty, for a state of liberty is a state of ex- 
terminating warfare. It proved that neither re- 
ligion nor morality could exist without enough of 
government to enforce the performance of duty 
on each member of society. 

"We have attempted, elsewhere, to show, that 
there cannot be enough of such government 
without domestic slavery, because, in its absence, 
men are placed in competitive and antagonistic 
positions toward each other. This separation of 
interest and antagonism begets continual rivalry, 
hatred, and intense discord and war, which politi- 
cal economy exasperates and increases, by en- 
couraging exclusive devotion to men's self-interest. 
A celebrated Socialist properly calls it " the phi- 
losophy of self interest." 

But political economy is the necessary result 
of Free Society — it is the only moral code which 
it can inculcate — and yet all its precepts are at 
war with morality. But for Christianity, Free 
Society would be a wilderness of crime; and 
Christianity has not fair play and a proper field 
of action, where government has failed to institute 
the peace-begetting and protective influence of 
domestic slavery. It is one of the necessary 
parts of government, without which men become 
enemies instead of brethren. There is no love 
between equals, and the divine precept, "Love 



THE MORALS OF FREE SOCIETY. 201 

thy neighbor as thyself," is thundered vainly in 
the ears of men straining for the same object. 

The maxim, " every man for himself," em- 
braces the whole moral code of Free Society; 
and Miss Bremer, and all the other philanthropists 
in the world, with their thousand schemes and 
institutions, will never be able to neutralise the 
immoral and death dealing tendency of that 
maxim, and of the antagonism and social war 
that it generates. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

SMALL NATIONALITIES. 

Almost the only secret of high civilization and 
national greatness consists in narrow and confined 
territorial limits. Beget the necessity for the ex- 
ercise of all the functions of government, all the 
mechanic and artistic arts, for the cultivation of 
all the sciences, and for the pursuit of all the avo- 
cations of civilized life by a small population, and 
intense enlightenment and universal education are 
the immediate result. History, ancient and mod- 
ern, teaches but one lesson on this subject. Little 
Phoenicia and little Carthage, the hundred little 
states of Greece, and Rome, whilst her dominion 
was confined to Italy, were truly great. When 
Alexander had conquered Egypt and Persia, and 
died for want of other worlds to conquer, Greece 
fell to rise no more, and in her fall involved the 
conquered nations in one common ruin. Rome 
conquered the world, and forthwith Cimmerian 
darkness began to cover her empire. England, 
under the Piantagenets, ere Scotland or Ireland 
were annexed, crowned her King in Paris. Now, 
whilst the beat of her drum circles the globe, she 
trembles at the threat of French invasion. 



SMALL NATIONALITIES. 203 

Little Prussia, little Venice, little Holland, and 
little Portugal, have each, in turn, controlled the 
destines of Europe. Even little Sweden, under 
Charles XII., whipped all the Russias till she 
taught' Peter how to fight. Overgrown nations, 
like overgrown men, want energy, activity and 
intelligence. 

We should learn from these instances in history 
to prize and guard State Rights. We should, as 
far as consistent with the Constitution, make each 
State independent of the rest of the world ; create 
a necessity for the exercise of all the arts, scien- 
ces, trades, professions and other pursuits that 
pertain to separate nationality ; and endeavor to 
counteract the centralizing tendency of modern 
improvements in locomotion and intercommunica- 
tion, which naturally rob the extremities to enrich 
the centres of Power and of Trade. We live in 
critical times, for the tendency to centralization is 
stronger than ever before. Trade very easily ef- 
fects now what conquest did formerly. Let the 
States of the South look to this matter. Are they 
willing to remain mere colonies and plantations for 
the centres of trade, or will they preserve their 
separate nationality ? 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE HIGHER LAW. 

In framing and revising the institutions and 
government of a nation, and in enacting its laws, 
sensible and prudent statesmen study carefully the 
will of God and designs of Providence, as revealed 
in Holy Writ, or as gathered from history and ex- 
perience. " Truth is mighty, and will prevail/' 
and laws in contravention of the great truths de- 
ducible from these sources, will become nugatory 
and inefficient. Yet whilst the law is on the stat- 
ute book, every citizen is bound to respect and 
obey it, or else take the consequences of trespass, 
felony or treason. He may discuss the question, 
" Does the law coincide with the ' Higher Law \V 
but he may not act on his conclusions if they be 
against the law. 

Does slavery violate the Higher Law ? Cer- 
tainly not, if that Higher Law is to be found only 
in the Bible. Certainly not, if you throw aside the 
Bible, and infer what is right, proper, and natural, 
from the course of nature, the lessons of history? 
or the voice of experience. But consult the same 
sources for your Higher Law, and as certainly is 
free society a violation of the laws of Nature and 
the revealed will of God. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

INFIDELITY AND ABOLITIONISM. 

Every one who reads the newspapers must have 
observed that open-mouthed infidelity is never seen 
or heard in this country except in abolition meet- 
ings and conventions, and in women's rights con- 
venticles. On such occasions some woman unsexes 
herself, and with Gorgon head and Harpy tongue 
pours out false and foul execrations against slavery 
and the Bible, aided by men with sharper tongues 
and duller courage than the women themselves. 
To this there is a single exception. One pulpit in 
Boston is on the Sabbath made a rostrum whence 
an abolitionist fulminates contention and discord, 
and stirs up to bloodshed and murder. 

Liberty, infidelity, and abolition, are three 
words conveying but one idea. Infidels who dis- 
pute the authority of God will not respect or obey 
the government of man. Abolitionists, who make 
war upon slavery, instituted by God and approved 
by Holy Writ, are in a fair way to denounce the 
Bible that stands in the way of the attainment of 
their purpose. Marriage is too much like slavery 
not to be involved in its fate ; and the obedience 
of wives which the Bible inculcates, furnishes a 



206 INFIDELITY AND ABOLITIONISM. 

new theme for infidelity in petticoats or in Bloom- 
ers to harp on. Slavery, marriage, religion, are 
the pillars of the social fabric. France felled them 
at a blow, and Paris and St. Domingo were crushed 
beneath the ruins of the edifice which they sup- 
ported. 

Frenchmen and Germans are generally infidels, 
agrarians and abolitionists. An Irish infidel, an 
Irish agrarian, or an Irish abolitionist, is scarcely 
to be found. No Irish woman ever disgraces her 
own sex, or affects the dress and manners of the 
opposite sex. The men of Erin are all brave, pa- 
triotic and religious ; her women are 

" Chaste as the icicle 
That's curdled by the frost of purest snow, 
And hangs on Dian's temple." 

This intimate connexion and dependence, of 
slavery, marriage and religion, Aye suggest as a 
subject for the investigation and reflection of the 
reader. If ever the abolitionists succeed in thor- 
oughly imbuing the world with their doctrines and 
opinions, all religion, all government, all order, 
will be slowly but surely subverted and destroyed. 
Society can linger on for centuries without slavery ; 
it cannot exist a day without religion. As an 
institution of government, religion is strictly within 
the scope of our work, and as such we treat of it. 

For fear assaults upon us may weaken the force 
of our facts and arguments, we will take occasion 



INFIDELITY AND ABOLITIONISM. 207 

more strictly to define our opinions as to govern- 
ment. We have ever, and still do belong to the 
Democratic party ; — not, however, to the " let 
alone " and " largest liberty " wing of that party. 
We believe in the capacity of the people to govern, 
and would not deny them the opportunity to exer- 
cise that capacity. We think there is no danger 
from too much or too popular government, provided 
w r e avoid centralization, and distribute as much as 
possible to small localities powers of police and 
legislation. We would cherish and preserve all our 
institutions as they are, adding to them probably 
larger separate governmental powers to be vested 
in the people of each county. The cause of pop- 
ular government is on the advance. The printing 
press, railroads, steamships and the telegraph 
afford opportunities for information, consultation 
and combination. But these agencies, w T hich will 
make governments more popular, will at the same 
time render them more efficient, all-pervading, rigid 
and exact. Ancient Republicanism will supplant 
Laissez-faire Republicanism ; — and ancient Repub- 
licanism we admire and prefer. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

KEVOLUTIONS AND REFORMATIONS. 

Reformations always do good, revolutions always 
harm. All old institutions in time become in- 
crusted with error and abuse, and frequent reforms 
are required to keep them in good working order, 
and to adapt them to the gradually changing cir- 
cumstances of mankind. This is equally true of 
religious institutions as of political ones, for there 
is much in the machinery and external manifesta- 
tions of the former, that is of mere human origin 
and contrivance, — and everything human is liable 
to imperfection and decay. 

Total changes, which revolutions propose, are 
never wise or practicable, because most of the insti- 
tutions of every country are adapted to the man- 
ners, morals and sentiments of the people. In- 
deed, the people have been moulded in character 
by those institutions, and they cannot be torn 
asunder and others substituted, for none others will 
fit. Hence reforms result in permanent change 
and improvement. Revolutions, after a great waste 
of blood and treasure, leave things to return soon 
to the " status quo ante bellum." English states- 
men, fully alive to these great truths, have for cen- 



REVOLUTIONS AND REFORMATIONS. 209 

turies past anticipated and prevented revolutions, 
by granting timely reforms. Mr. Jefferson, when 
we separated from Great Britain, wished to effect 
a total revolution, " laying its foundations on such 
principles, and organizing its powers in such forms, 
as," &c. Fortunately for us, the practical men 
who framed our government saw the wisdom and 
necessity of adopting English institutions (to which 
we had been accustomed), with very slight modifi- 
cations, to adapt them to our circumstances. Our 
separation from England was a great and salutary 
reform, not a revolution. Scotland is now attempt- 
ing a reform less in degree, but the same in char- 
acter — she is trying to get back her parliament 
and to establish a separate nationality. Vfe have 
no doubt it would redound to the strength and the 
glory of Great Britain, if both Scotland and Ire- 
land had separate parliaments. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



THE SLAVE TBADE. 



From several quarters propositions have of late 
been made for the revival of the African slave 
trade. The South has generally been opposed to 
this trade, the North favorable to it. Such is 
likely to be the case again ; for the North would 
make much money by conducting the trade ; the 
settled states of the South lose much by the de- 
preciation of their negroes. The extreme inhu- 
manity of this trade is enough to condemn it, but 
men's interests blind their eyes and steel their 
hearts against considerations of humanity. Be- 
sides, the argument will be most successfully em- 
ployed in its behalf, that it will but take the place 
of another kind of slave trade, that is still more in- 
human. The importation of apprentices or tempo- 
rary slaves is now actively conducted by England 
from Africa and various parts of Asia. These 
apprentices, if not worked to death before their 
terms of service expire, are left to starve after- 
wards, and new ones imported in their place. They 
are treated with less humanity than slaves, because 
the master has little interest in their lives. Vastly 
larger numbers must be imported to supply the 



THE SLAVE TRADE. 211 

demand for labor, because their children are not 
slaves, and they themselves but for a time. After 
liberation they will become a nuisance to the coun- 
try that imports them. 

The fact that, despite of the enormous annual 
importation of slaves to Cuba, the number of 
whites is greater than that of blacks in that island, 
proves clearly enough that where it is cheaper to 
buy African slaves than to rear them, men will 
work these poor natives to death, regardless of 
humanity. Besides, the natural antipathy between 
the savage and the civilized man, not only prevents 
the influence of domestic affection on the heart of 
the master, but indurates his feelings and degrades 
his morals. Our slaves are treated far better than 
they were forty years ago, because they have im- 
proved in mind and morals, approached nearer to 
the master's state of civilization, and thus elicited 
more of his interest and attachment. Slavery with 
us is becoming milder every day ; were the slave 
trade revived, it would resume its pristine cruelty. 
The slaves we now hold would become less valuable, 
and we should take less care of them. In justice 
to them let us protest against the renewal of this 
infamous traffic. Slavery originating from the 
conquest of a country is beneficent even in its 
origin, for it preserves the slaves or serfs who are 
parcelled out to the conquering chiefs from the 
waste, pillage, cruelty and oppression of the com- 



212 THE SLAVE TRADE. 

Hion soldiers of the conquering army, — but slavery 
brought about by hunting and catching Africans 
like beasts, and then exposing them to the horrors 
of the middle passage, is quite a different thing. 

We think it would be both wise and humane to 
subject the free negroes in America to some mod- 
ification of slavery. Competition with the whites 
is killing them out. They are neither so moral, so 
happy, nor half so well provided as the slaves. Let 
them select their masters, and this would be an- 
other instance of slavery originating without vio- 
lence or cruelty — another instance in which slavery 
would redress much greater evils than it occa- 
sioned. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

woman's rights. 

Slender. — I came yonder at Eton to marry mistress Anne Page, 
and she's a great lubberly boy. If it had not been i' the church, I 
would have swinged him, or he should have swinged me. If I 
did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir, 
and His a post-master's boy. — Merry Wives of Windsor. 

Nothing in the signs of the times exhibits in 
stronger relief the fact, that free society is in a 
state " of dissolution and thaw," of demoraliza- 
tion and transition, than the stir about woman's 
rights. And yet it is time to work. Northern 
newspapers are filled with the sufferings of poor 
widowed needlewomen, and the murders of wives 
by their husbands. Woman there is in a false 
position. Be she white, or be she black, she is 
treated with kindness and humanity in the slave- 
holding South. In Asia, she ever has been and is 
now an idol, secluded from the vulgar gaze, and 
exempted from the hard and coarse labors of man. 
The Turks and the Chinese imprison, her, but 
worship her. Her veiled face and cramped feet, 
unfit her for work, condemn her to seclusion, but 
secure to her protection. She is a slave,. but is 
idle, honored and caressed. The Romans girded 



214 woman's rights. 

up the toga, when about to engage in labor. If 
American women wish to participate in the hard 
labor of men, they are right to curtail the petti- 
coat. Queens wear the longest trains, because 
they have least occasion to labor. The broom 
girls of Bavaria have to work hard for a living, 
and find it necessary to amputate the nether im- 
pediments. In France, woman draws the plough 
and the canal boat. She will be condemned to 
like labors in America,, so soon as her dress, her 
education and coarse sentiments fit her for such 
labors. Let her exhibit strength and hardihood, 
and man, her master, will make her a beast of 
burden. So long as she is nervous,' fickle, capri- 
cious, delicate, diffident and dependent, man will 
worship and adore her. Her weakness is her 
strength, and her true art is to cultivate and im- 
prove that weakness. Woman naturally shrinks 
from public gaze, and from the struggle and com- 
petition of life. Free society has thrown her into 
the arena of industrial war, robbed her of the 
softness of her own sex, without conferring on 
her the strength of ours. In truth, woman, like 
children, has but one right, and that is the right 
to protection. The right to protection involves 
the obligation to obey. A husband, a lord and 
master, whom she should love, honor and obey, 
nature designed for every woman, — for the num- 
ber of males and females is the same. If she be 



woman's eights. 215 

obedient, she is in little danger of mal-treatment ; 
if she stands upon her rights, is coarse and mas- 
culine, man loathes and despises her, and ends by 
abusing her. Law, however well intended, can 
do little in her behalf. True womanly art will 
give her an empire and a sway far greater than 
she deserves. The best women have been dis- 
tasteful to men, and unpopular with their own sex, 
simply for betraying, or seeming to betray, some- 
thing masculine in their characters. Catherine 
Parr, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs. Fry, Miss Martineau, 
and Madame De Stael, are not loveable charac- 
ters. On the other hand, men have adored the 
worst women, merely for their feminine charms 
and arts. Rhodope and Aspasia, Delilah, Cleo- 
patra, Mary Stuart, Ninon D'Enclos, Maria Antoi- 
nette, Herodias and Lola Montez, ruled men as 
they pleased, by the exercise of all the charms, 
and more than the wiles and weakness of their 
sex. Mrs. Stowe, in the characters of Aunt 
Phebe and Mrs. St. Clair, beautifully illustrates 
and enforces this idea. Bad as Mrs. St. Clair is, 
we feel that we might love her, but good Aunt 
Phebe is a she-man, continually boring and el- 
bowing us with her rectangular virtues. Yet Mrs. 
Stowe would have women preach. If she sets 
them to preaching to-day, we men will put them 
to the plough to-morrow. Women would do well 



216 woman's rights. 

to disguise strength of mind or body, if they 
possess it, if they would retain their empire. 

The people of our Northern States, who hold 
that domestic slavery is unjust and iniquitous, are 
consistent in their attempts to modify or abolish 
the marriage relation. Marriages, in many places 
there, are contracted with as little formality as 
jumping over a broom, and are dissolved with equal 
facility by courts and legislatures. It is pro- 
posed by many to grant divorces at ail times, when 
the parties mutually consent. The Socialists 
suggest that the relation should be abolished, pri- 
vate family establishments broken up, and women 
and children converted into joint stock. The 
ladies are promoting these movements by women's 
right's conventions. The prospects of these agi- 
tators are quite hopeful, because they have no 
conservative South to oppose them. It is their 
own affair, and we will not interfere with its re- 
gulation. 

We shall deplore the day when marriage and 
Christianity are abolished anywhere, but will not 
interfere in the social and domestic matters of 
other people. 

The men of the South take care of the women 
of the South, the men of slaveholding Asia 
guard and protect their women too. The gener- 
ous sentiments of slaveholders are sufficient guar- 
antee of the rights of woman, all the world over. 



woman's kights. 217 

But there is something wrong in her condition 
in free society, and that condition is daily be- 
coming worse. 

Give us woman with all her frailties and infirm- 
ities, varium et mutabalile semper. 

"Like the uncertain glory of an April day 
Which now shows all the beauty of sun, 
And bye and bye a cloud takes all away V 

We like not that — 

"Beauty, forever unchangingly bright, 



Like the long sunny lapse of a summer's day light, 
Shining on, shining on, by no shadow made tender, 
Till love falls asleep in its sameness of splendor." 

We would infinitely prefer to nurse a sickly 
woman, to being led about by a masculine blue 
stocking. Mrs. Boswell complained that her hus- 
band, following Dr. Johnson, resembled a man led 
about by a bear. We would rather be led by a 
bear than a woman. He looks more formidable 
and master-like. 

To the husbands of pedantic, masculine women, 
the lines of Byron may be well applied — 

u But oh ! ye Lords of ladies intellectual, 

Inform us truly, have they not hen-pecked you all." 

As we are in the poetic vein, and this chapter 
is intended solely for the eyes of the ladies, all 
of whom love poetry, (though none of them can 

K 



218 woman's rights. 

write it,) we will quote a whole ode of Schiller, 
which expresses our thoughts on this subject far 
better than we can express them ourselves. Poe- 
try and painting require boldness, originality and 
inventiveness. The ladies are too modest to prac- 
tise these qualities, and only become coarse when 
they attempt to be bold. Sappho is an exception, 
but Sappho, we suspect, was a Myth or a man. 
We offer this beautiful ode to the ladies as a pro- 
pitiation for all the wicked things we have said 
about them: 

HONOE TO WOMAN. 

Honor to Woman ! To her it is given 

To guard the earth with the roses of heaven ! 

All blessed, she linketh the Loves in their choir ; 
In the veil of the Graces her beauty concealing, 
She tends on each altar that's hallowed to Feeling 

And keeps ever living the fire ! 

From the bounds of truth careering, 

Man's strong spirit wildly sweeps, 
With each hasty impulse veering 

Down to Passion's troubled deeps. 
And his heart contented never, 

Goads to grapple with the far, 
Chasing his own dream forever, 

On through many a distant star ! 

But Woman, with looks that can charm and enchain, 
Lureth back at her beck the wild truant again, 

By the spell of her presence beguiled ; 
In the home of the mother, her modest abode, 
And modest the manners by Nature bestowed 

On Nature's most exquisite child 1 



woman's rights. 219 

Bruised and worn, but fiercely breasting, 

Foe to foe, the angry strife; 
Man, the wild one, never resting, 

Braves along the troubled life j 
What he planneth, still pursuing ; 

Vainly as the hydra bleeds. 
Crest the severed crest renewing — 

Wish to withered wish succeeds. 

But woman, at peace with all being, reposes, 
And seeks from the moment to gather the roses, 

Whose sweets to her culture belong. 
Ah ! richer than he, though his soul reigneth o'er 
The mighty dominion of Genius and Love, 

And the infinite Circle of Song. 

Strong and proud and self-depending, 

Man's cold bosom beats alone,* 
Heart with heart divinely blending 

In the love that gods have known, 
Soul's sweet interchange of feeling, 

Melting tears — he never knows. 
Each hard sense, the hard one steeling, 

Arms against a world of foes. 

Alive, as the wind harp, hew lightly soever 
If woo'd by the Zephyr, to music will quiver, 

Is woman to Hope and to Fear ; 
Ah ! tender one ! still at the shadow of grieving, 
How quiver the chords — how thy bosom is heaving — 

How trembles thy glance through the tear ! 

Man's dominion, war and labor: 

Might to right the statute gave ; 
Laws are in the Scythian's sabre ; 

"Where the Mede reign'd — see the slave ! 
Peace and meekness grimly routing, 

Prowl's the War-lust, rude and wild ; 
Eris rages, hoarsely shouting, 

Where the vanished Graces smiled, 



220 woman's rights. 

But Woman, the Soft One, persuasively prayeth, 

Of the life that she charmeth, the sceptre she swayeth ; 

She lulls, as she looks from above, 
The Discord whose hell for its victims is gaping, 
And blending awhile, then forever escaping, 

Whispers Hate to the image of Love ! 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE SUMMING- UP. 

" Why, my dear Lucifer, would you abuse 
My call for witnesses ? I did not mean 
That you should half of earth and hell produce ,' 
'Tis even superfluous, since two honest, clean, 
True testimonies are enough : "We live 
Our time, nay, our eternity, between 
The accusation and defence : if we 
Hear both, 'twill stretch our immortality." 

The Vision of Judgment. 

We did not intend to write the history of 
slavery, or to treat of it in all its aspects. It has 
been so interwoven with all the relations and his- 
tory of human kind, that to do so would require a 
Moral Cosmos and a history of the world. Our 
chief object has been to prove the failure of free 
society. We knew if we succeeded in that, the 
various theories propounded in this work on other 
subjects would be found, when closely examined, 
necessary results, or legitimate sequences. 

In order to enable the reader fully to compre- 
hend our argument, and to furnish a fair field for 
its refutation, if false, we will now sum up the 
chief points which we have made, and on which 
we rely. 



222 THE SUMMING UP. 

First. Free society is theoretically impracti- 
cable, because its friends admit that " in all old 
countries the supply of labor exceeds the demand.' ' 
Hence a part of the laboring class must be out of 
employment and starving, and in their struggle to 
get employment, reducing those next above them 
to the minimum that will support human existence. 

Secondly. The late invention and use of the 
word Sociology in free society, and of the science 
of which it treats, and the absence of such word 
and science in slave society, shows that the former 
is afflicted with disease, the latter healthy. 

Thirdly. We prove the failure, from history 
and statistics. 

Fourthly. We prove it from the exodus now 
going on from Western Europe with all the reck- 
less panic and trepidation of a " Sauve que peyt ! " 

And, lastly, we prove it from the universal ad- 
mission of all writers who have of late years 
treated of the subject of society in Free Europe. 

For thirty years the South has been a field on 
which abolitionists, foreign and domestic, Ijave 
carried on offensive warfare. Let us now, in turn, 
act on the offensive, transfer the seat of war, and 
invade the enemy's territory. 



APPENDIX 



APPENDIX. 



Our little work has by untoward circumstances 
been delayed in its publication. Ten years ago we 
became satisfied that slavery, black or white, was 
right and necessary. We advocated this doctrine 
in very many essays ; sometimes editorially and 
sometimes as a communicant. The Fredericksburg 
Recorder and Richmond Examiner will testify to 
this fact. We republish in this Appendix a series 
of essays that first appeared in the Democratic 
Recorder, of Fredericksburg, in 1849, 1850, and 
1851. 

Few papers in the Union then had the stern 
courage and integrity to admit such articles into 
their columns. We then published them in pam- 
phlet form, for a few friends. We now re-publish 
them, because, whatever " bad eminence " we may 
attain from being the first to write the Justification 
and Philosophy of Slavery, we prefer that position 
to being considered the mere follower in the wake 
of evil doers. We believe we are morally and 
religiously right. We know that if wrong, we can 
be easily confuted. 



SLAVERY JUSTIFIED. 

LIBERTY AND EQUALITY — SOCIALISM — YOUNG ENG- 
LAND — DOMESTIC SLAVERY. 

Liberty and equality are new things under the sun. 
The free states of antiquity abounded with slaves. 
The feudal system that supplanted Roman institutions 
changed the form of slavery, but brought with it neither 
liberty nor equality. France and the Northern States of 
our Union have alone fully and fairly tried the experi- 
ment of a social organization founded upon universal 
liberty and equality of rights. England has only ap- 
proximated to this condition in her commercial and 
manufacturing cities. The examples of small commu- 
nities in Europe are not fit exponents of the working of 
the system. In France and in our Northern States the 
experiment has already failed, if we are to form our 
opinions from the discontent of the masses, or to believe 
the evidence of the Socialists, Communists, Anti-Renters, 
and a thousand other agrarian sects that have arisen 
in these countries, and threaten to subvert the whole so- 
cial fabric. The leaders of these sects, at least in France, 
comprise within their ranks the greater number of the 
most cultivated and profound minds in the nation, who 
have made government their study. Add to the evidence 
of these social philosophers, who, watching closely the 
working of the system, have proclaimed to the world its 
total failure, the condition of the working classes, and we 



APPENDIX. 227 

have conclusive proof thatfiiberty and equality have not 
conduced to enhance the comfort or the happiness of the 
people. Crime and pauperism have increased. Riots, 
trades unions, strikes for higher w#ges, discontent break- 
ing out into revolution, are things of daily occurrence, 
and show that the poor see and feel quite as clearly as the 
philosophers, that their condition is far worse under the 
new than under the old order of things. Radicalism 
and Chartism in England owe their birth to the free and 
equal institutions of her commercial and manufacturing 
districts, and are little heard of in the quiet farming dis- 
tricts, where remnants of feudalism still exist in the rela- 
tion of landlord and tenant, and in the laws of entail 
and primogeniture. 

So much for experiment. We will now endeavor to 
treat the subject theoretically, and to show that the sys- 
tem is on its face self-destructive and impracticable. 
When we look to the vegetable, animal and human 
kingdoms, we discover in them all a constant conflict, 
war, or race of competition, the result of which is, that 
the weaker or less healthy genera, species and individ- 
uals are continually displaced and exterminated by the 
stronger and more hardy. It is a means by which some 
contend Nature is perfecting her own work. We, how- 
ever, witness the war, but do not see the improvement. 
Although from the earliest date of recorded history, one 
race of plants has been eating out and taking the place 
of another, the stronger or more cunning animals been 
destroying the feebler, and man exterminating and sup- 
planting his fellow, still the plants, the animals and the 
men of to-day seem not at all superior, even in those 



228 APPENDIX. 

qualities of strength and hardihood to which they owe 
their continued existence, to those of thousands of years 
ago. To this propensity of ihe strong to oppress and 
destroy the weak, government owes its existence. So 
strong is this propensity, and so destructive to human 
existence, that man has never yet been found so savage 
as to be without government. Forgetful of this impor- 
tant fact, which is the origin of all governments, the 
political economists and the advocates of liberty and 
equality propose to enhance the well being of man by 
trammeling his conduct as little as possible, and encour- 
aging what they call Free Competition. Now, free 
competition is but another name for liberty and equality, 
and we must acquire precise and accurate notions about 
it in order to ascertain how free institutions will work. 
It is, then, that war or conflict to which Nature impels 
her creatures, and which government was intended to 
restrict. It is true, it is that war somewhat modified and 
restricted, for the warmest friends of freedom would 
have some government. The question is, whether the 
proposed restrictions are sufficient to neutralize the self- 
destructive tendencies which nature impresses on society. 
"We proceed to show that the war of the wits, of mind 
with mind, which free competition or liberty and equality 
beget and encourage, is quite as oppressive, cruel and ex- 
terminating, as the war of the sword, of theft, robbery, 
and murder, which it forbids. It is only substituting 
strength of mind for strength of body. 3Ien are told 
it is their duty to compete, to endeavor to get ahead 
of and supplant their fellow men, by the exercise of 
all the intellectual and moral strength with which 



APPENDIX. 229 

nature and education have endowed them. " Might 
makes right," is the order of creation, and this law of 
nature, so far as mental might is concerned, is restored 
by liberty to man. The struggle to better one's condi- 
tion, to pull others down or supplant them, is the great 
organic law of free society. All men being equal, all 
aspire to the highest honors and the largest posses- 
sions. Good men and bad men teach their children one 
and the sarm>- lesson — " Go ahead, push your way in the 
world." yln such society, virtue, if virtue there be, loses 
all her loveliness because of her selfish aims. None but 
the selfish virtues are encouraged, because none other 
aid a man in the race of free competition. Good men 
and bad men have the same end in view, are in pursuit 
of the same object — self-promotion, self-elevation^ The 
good man is prudent, cautious, and cunning of fence 5 
he knows well the arts (the virtues, if you please,) 
which will advance his fortunes and enable him to de- 
press and supplant others ; he bides his time, takes ad- 
vantage of the follies, the improvidence, and vices of 
others, and makes his fortune out of the misfortunes of 
his fellow men. The bad man is rash, hasty, and un- 
skillful. He is equally selfish, but not half so cunning. 
Selfishness is almost the only motive of human conduct 
with good and bad in free society, where every man is 
taught that he may change and better his condition. A 
vulgar adage, " Every man for himself, and devil take 
the hindmost," is the moral which liberty and free 
competition inculcate. Now, there are no more honors 
and wealth in proportion to numbers, in this generation, 
than in the one which preceded it 5 population fully 



230 APPENDIX. 

keeps pace with the means of subsistence ; hence, these 
who better their condition or rise to higher places in so- 
ciety, do so generally by pulling down others or pushing 
them from their places. Where men of strong minds, 
of strong wills, and of great self-control, come into free 
competition with the weak and improvident, the latter 
soon become the inmates of jails and penitentiaries. 

The statistics of France, England and America show 
that pauperism and crime advance pari passu with lib- 
erty and equality. How can it be otherwise, when all 
society is combined to oppress the poor and weak mind- 
ed? The rich man, however good -he may be, employs 
the laborer who will work for the least wages. If 
he be a good man, his punctuality enables him to 
cheapen the wages of the poor man. The poor war 
with one another in the race of competition, in order 
to get employment, by underbidding ; for laborers are 
more abundant than employers. Population increases 
faster than capital. Look to the situation of woman 
when she is thrown into this war of competition, and has 
to support herself by her daily wages. For the same or 
equally valuable services she gets not half the pay that 
man does, simply because the modesty of her sex pre- 
vents her from resorting to all the arts and means of 
competition which men employ. He who would eman- 
cipate woman, unless he could make her as coarse and 
strong in mind and body as man, would be her worst en- 
emy ; her subservience to and dependence on man, is ne- 
cessary to her very existence. She is not a soldier fitted 
to enlist in the war of free competition. We do not set 
children and women free because they are not capable of 



APPENDIX. 231 

taking care of themselves, not equal to the constant 
struggle of society. To set them free would be to give 
the lamb to the wolf to take care of. Society would 
quickly devour them. If the children of ten years of 
age were remitted to all the rights of person and property 
which men enjoy, all can perceive how soon ruin and 
penury would overtake them. But half of mankind are 
but grown-up children, and liberty is as fatal to them as 
it would be to children. 

We will cite another familiar instance to prove and 
illustrate the destructive effects of liberty or free compe- 
tition. It is that where two races of men of different 
capacity are brought into juxtaposition. It is the boast 
of the Anglo-Saxon, that by the arts of peace under the 
influence of free trade he can march to universal con- 
quest. However true this may be, all know that if Eng- 
lishmen or Americans settle among inferior races, they 
soon become the owners of the soil, and gradually extir- 
pate or reduce to poverty the original owners. They are 
the wire-grass of nations. The same law of nature 
which enables and impels the stronger race to oppress 
and exterminate the weaker, is constantly at work in the 
bosom of every society, between its stronger and weaker 
members. Liberty and equality rather encourage than 
restrict this law in its deadly operation. A Northern 
gentleman, who was both statesman and philosopher, 
once told us, that his only objection to domestic slavery 
was, that it would perpetuate an inferior race, who, under 
the influence of free trade and free competition, would 
otherwise disappear from the earth. China and Japan 



232 APPENDIX. 

acted wisely to anticipate this new philosophy and ex- 
clude Europeans.* 

One step more, and that the most difficult in this pro- 
cess of reasoning and illustration, and we have done with 
this part of our subject. Liberty and equality throw 
the whole weight of society on its weakest members ; . 
they combine all men in oppressing precisely that part of 
mankind who most need sympathy, aid and protection. 
The very astute and avaricious man, when left free to 
exercise his faculties, is injured by no one in the field of 
competition, but levies a tax on all with whom he deals. 
The sensible and prudent, but less astute man, is seldom 
worsted in competing with his fellow men, and generally 
benefited. The very simple and improvident man is the 
prey of every body. The simple man represents a class, 
the common day laborers. The employer cheapens their 
wages, and the retail dealer takes advantage of their igno- 
rance, their inability to visit other markets, and their 
want of credit, to charge them enormous profits. They 
bear the whole weight of society on their shoulders } 
they are the producers and artificers of all the necessa- 
ries, the comforts, the luxuries, the pomp and splendor 
of the world ; they create it all, and enjoy none of it ; 
they are the muzzled ox that treadeth out the straw ; 
they are at constant war with those above them, asking 
higher wages but getting lower ; for they are also at war 
with each other, underbidding to get employment. This 
process of underbidding never ceases so long as employ- 



* But free trade has conquered. Chinese are shipped off as 
slaves, and Japan trembles as she hears the knocking at her door. 



APPENDIX. 233 

ers want profits or laborers want employment. It ends 
when wages are reduced too low to afford subsistence, in 
filling poor-bouses, and jails, and graves. It bas reached 
that point already in France, England and Ireland. A 
half million died of hunger in one year in Ireland — 
they died because in the eye of the law they were the 
equals, and liberty had made them the enemies, of their 
landlords and employers. Had they been vassals or 
serfs, they would have been beloved, cherished and taken 
care of by those same landlords and employers. Slaves 
never die of hunger, scarcely ever feel want. 

The bestowing upon men equality of rights, is but 
giving license to the strong to oppress the weak. It be- 
gets the grossest inequalities of condition. Menials and 
day laborers are and must be as numerous as in a land of 
slavery. And these menials and laborers are only taken 
care of while young, strong and healthy. If the la- 
borer gets sick, his wages cease just as his demands are 
greatest. If two of the poor get married^ who being 
young and healthy, are getting good wages, in a few 
years they may have four children. Their wants have 
increased, but the mother has enough to do to nurse the 
four children, and the wages of the husband must sup- 
port six. There is no equality, except in theory, in such 
society, and there is no liberty. The men of property, 
those who own lands and money, are masters of the poor; 
masters, with none of the feelings, interests or sympa- 
thies of masters ; they employ them when they please, 
and for what they please, and may leave them to die in 
the highway, for it is the only home to which the poor in 
free countries are entitled. They (the property holders) 



234 APPENDIX. 

beheaded Charles Stuart and Louis Capet, because these 
kings asserted a divine right to govern wrong, and forgot 
that office was a trust to be exercised for the benefit of 
the governed ; and yet they seem to think that property 
is of divine right, and that they may abuse its possession 
to the detriment of the rest of society, as much as they 
please. A pretty exchange the world would make, to 
get rid of kings who often love and protect the poor, and 
get in their place a million of pelting, petty officers in 
the garb of money-changers and land-owners, who think 
that as they own all the property, the rest of mankind 
have no right to a living, except on the conditions they 
may prescribe. " 'Tis bettter to fall before the lion than 
the wolf," and modern liberty has substituted a thousand 
wolves for a few lions. The vulgar landlords, capitalists 
and employers of to-day, have the liberties and lives of 
the people more completely in their hands, than had the 
kings, barons and gentlemen of former times \ and they 
hate and oppress the people as cordially as the people 
despise them. But these vulgar parvenus, these psalm- 
singing regicides, these worshipers of mammon, "have 
but taught bloody instructions, which being taught, re- 
turn to plague the inventor." The king's office was a 
trust, so are your lands, houses and money. Society per. 
mits you to hold them, because private property well 
administered conduces to the good of all society. This 
is your only title ; you lose your right to your property, 
as the king did to his crown, so soon as you cease faith- 
fully to execute your trust ; you can't make commons 
and forests of your lands and starve mankind ; you must 
manage your lands to produce the most food and raiment 



APPENDIX. 235 

for mankind, or you forfeit your title 5 you may not un- 
derstand this philosophy, but you feel that it is true, and 
are trembling in your seats as you hear the murmurings 
and threats of the starving poor. 

The moral effect of free society is to banish Christian 
virtue, that virtue which bids us love our neighbor as 
ourself, and to substitute the very equivocal virtues pro- 
ceeding from mere selfishness. The intense struggle to 
better each one's pecuniary condition, the rivalries, the 
jealousies, the hostilities which it begets, leave neither 
time nor inclination to cultivate the heart or the head. 
Every finer feeling of our nature is chilled and benumbed 
by its selfish atmosphere ; affection is under the ban, 
because affection makes us less regardful of mere self; 
hospitality is considered criminal waste, chivalry a stum- 
bling-block, and the code of honor foolishness ; taste, 
sentiment, imagination, are forbidden ground, because 
no money is to be made by them. Gorgeous pageantry 
and sensual luxury are the only pleasures indulged in, 
because they alone are understood and appreciated, and 
they are appreciated just for what they cost in dollars 
and cents. What makes money, and what costs money, 
are alone desired. Temperance, frugality, thrift, atten- 
tion to business, industry, and skill in making bargains) 
are virtues in high repute, because they enable us to sup- 
plant others and increase our own wealth. The charac- 
ter of our Northern brethren, and of the Dutch, is proof 
enough of the justice of these reflections. The Puritan 
fathers had lived in Holland, and probably imported 
Norway rats and Dutch morality in the Mayflower. 



236 APPENDIX. 

Liberty and equality are not only destructive to the 
morals, but to the happiness of society. Foreigners have 
all remarked on the care-worn, thoughtful, unhappy 
countenances of our people, and the remark only applies 
to the North, for travellers see little of us at the South, 
who live far from highways and cities, in contentment on 
our farms. 

The facility with which men may improve their con- 
dition would, indeed, be a consideration much in favor of 
free society, if it did not involve as a necessary conse- 
quence the equal facility and liability to lose grade and 
fortune. As many fall as rise. The wealth of society 
hardly keeps pace with its numbers. All cannot be 
rich. The rich and the poor change places oftener than 
where there are fixed hereditary distinctions ; so often, 
that the sense of insecurity makes every one unhappy ; 
so often, that we see men clutching at security through 
means of Odd Fellows, Temperance Societies, &c, which 
provide for members when sick, and for the families of 
deceased members ; so often, that almost every State in 
the Union has of late years enacted laws or countenanced 
decisions giving more permanency to property. Entails 
and primogeniture are as odious to us as kings were to the 
Romans ) but their object — to keep property in our fami- 
lies — is as dear to us as to any people on earth, because 
we love our families as much. Hence laws to exempt 
small amounts of personal property from liability to debt 
are daily enacted, and hence Iowa or Wisconsin has a 
provision in her constitution, that the homestead of some 
forty acres shall be exempt from execution. Hence, 
also, the mighty impulse of late in favor of woman's 



APPENDIX. 237 

rights. Legislatures and courts are vieing with each 
other which shall do most to secure married women's 
rights to them. The ruin of thousands upon thousands 
of families in the revulsion of 1837, taught the necessity 
of this new species of entail, this new way of keeping 
property in the family. The ups and downs of life be- 
came too rapid to be agreeable to any who had property 
to lose or a family to provide for. We have not yet 
quite cooled down from the fervor of the Revolution. 
We have been looking to one side only of our institu- 
tions. We begin to feel, however, that there is another 
and a dark side, — a side where all are seen going down 
the hill of fortune. Let us look closely and fearlessly at 
this feature of free society, so much lauded and so little 
understood. What object more laudable, what so dear 
to a man's heart, as to continue a competency of prop- 
erty, refinement of mind and morals, to his posterity ? 
What nobler incentive to virtuous conduct, than the be- 
lief that such conduct will redound to the advantage of 
our descendants ? What reflection so calculated to make 
men reckless, wretched and immoral, as the conviction 
that the means they employ to improve the moral, men- 
tal and pecuniary condition of their offspring, are, in 
this land of ups and downs, the very means to make 
them the prey of the cunning, avaricious and unprin- 
cipled, who have been taught in the school of adversity 
and poverty ? We constantly boast that the wealthy and 
powerful of to-day are the sons of the weak, ignorant 
and destitute of yesterday. It is the other side of the 
picture that we want moral courage to* look at. We are 
dealing now with figures of arithmetic, not of rhetoric. 



238 APPENDIX. 

Those who rise, pull down a class as numerous, and often 
more worthy than themselves, to the abyss of misery and 
penury. Painful as it may be, the reader shall look with 
us at this dark side of the picture ; he shall view the 
vanquished as well as the victors on this battle-ground 
of competition ; he shall see those who were delicately 
reared, taught no tricks of trade, no shifts of thrifty ava- 
rice, spurned, insulted, down-trodden by the coarse and 
vulgar, whose wits and whose appetites had been sharp- 
ened by necessity. If he can sympathize with fallen 
virtue or detest successful vice, he will see nothing in 
this picture to admire. 

The wide fields of the newly rich will cease to excite 
pleasure in the contemplation ; they will look like G-ol- 
gothas covered with human bones. Their coarse and 
boisterous joys, while they revel in their spoils, will not 
help to relieve the painful sympathies for their victims. 

But these parvenus are men with all the feelings of 
men, though somewhat blunted by the race for wealth ; 
they love their children, and would have them unlike 
themselves, moral, refined, and educated — above the ne- 
cessities and tricks of their parents. They rear them as 
gentlemen, to become the victims in their turn of the 
children of fallen gentlemen of a past generation — these 
latter having learned in the school of adversity the path 
to fortune. In Heaven's name, what is human life worth 
with such prospects ahead ? Who would not rather lie 
down and die than exert himself to educate and make 
fortunes for his children, when he has reason to fear that 
by so doing he is to heap coals of fire on their heads. 
And yet this is an exact picture of the prospect which 



APPENDIX. 239 

universal liberty holds out to its votaries. It is true it 
hides with a veil the agonies of the vanquished, and 
only exhibits the vulgar mirth of the victors. We have 
lifted the veil. 

In Boston, a city famed for its wealth and the pru- 
dence of its inhabitants, nine-tenths of the men in busi- 
ness fail. In the slaveholding South, except in new set- 
tlements, failures are extremely rare ; small properties 
descend from generation to generation in the same fam- 
ily ; there is as much stability and permanency of prop- 
erty as is compatible with energy and activity in society; 
fortunes are made rather by virtuous industry than by 
tricks, cunning and speculation. 

We have thus attempted* to prove from theory and 
from actual experirnenyf that a society of universal lib- 
erty and equality is absurd and impracticable.^- We have 
performed our task, we know, indifferently, but hope we 
have furnished suggestions that may be profitably used 
by those more accustomed to authorship. 

We now come in the order of our subject to treat of 
the various new sects of philosophers that have appeared 
of late years in France and in our free States, who, dis- 
gusted with society as it exists, propose to re-organize it 
on entirely new principles. We have never heard of a 
convert to any of these theories in the slave States. If 
we are not all contented, still none see evils of such mag- 
nitude in society as to require its entire subversion and 
reconstruction. We shall group all these sects together, 
because they all concur in the great truth that Free Com- 
petition is the bane of free society ; they all concur, too, 
in modifying or wholly destroying the institution of pri- 



210 APPENDIX. 

vate property. Many of them, seeing that property en- 
ables its owners to exercise a more grinding oppression 
than kings ever did, would destroy its tenure altogether. 
In France, especially, these sects are headed by men of 
great ability, who saw the experiment of liberty and 
equality fairly tested in France after the revolution of 
1792. They saw, as all the world did, that it failed to 
promote human happiness or well-being. 

France found the Consulate and the Empire havens of 
bliss compared with the stormy ocean of liberty and 
equality on which she had been tossed. Wise, however, 
as these Socialists and Communists of France are, they 
cannot create a man, a tree, or a new system of society ; 
these are God's works, which man may train, trim and 
modify, but cannot create. The attempt to establish 
government on purely theoretical abstract speculation, 
regardless of circumstance and experience, has always 
failed ; never more signally than with the Socialists. 

The frequent experience of the Abbe Sieve's paper 
structures of government, which lasted so short a time, 
should have taught them caution ; but they were bolder 
reformers than he : they had a fair field for their experi- 
ment after the expulsion of Louis Phillippe ; they tried 
it, and their failure was complete and ridiculous. The 
Abbe's structures were adamant compared to theirs. 
The rule of the weak Louis Napoleon was welcomed as a 
fortunate escape from their schemes of universal benevo- 
lence, which issued in universal bankruptcy. 

The sufferings of the Irish, and the complaints of the 
Radicals and Chartists, have given birth to a new party 
in England, called Young England. This party saw in 



APPENDIX. 241 

the estrangement and hostility of classes, and the suffer- 
ings of the poor, the same evils of free competition that 
had given rise to Socialism in France ) though less tal- 
ented than the Socialists, they came much nearer discov- 
ering the remedy for these evils. 

Young England belongs to the most conservative wing 
of the tory party ) he inculcates strict subordination of 
rank ; would have the employer kind, attentive and pa. 
ternal, in his treatment of the operative. The operative, 
humble, affectionate and obedient to his employer. He 
is young, and sentimental, and would spread his doctrines 
in tracts, sonnets and novels ; but society must be ruled 
by sterner stuff than sentiment. Self-interest makes the 
employer and free laborer enemies. The one prefers to 
pay low wages, the other needs high wages. War, con- 
stant war, is the result, in which the operative perishes, 
but is not vanquished ; he is hydra-headed, and when he 
dies two take his place. But numbers diminish his 
strength. The competition among laborers to get em. 
ployment begets an intestine war, more destructive than 
the war from above. There is but one remedy for this 
evil, so inherent in free society, and that is, to identify 
the interests of the weak and the strong, the poor and 
the rich. Domestic Slavery does this far better than 
any other institution. Feudalism only answered the 
purpose in^so far as Feudalism retained the features of 
slavery ^To it (slavery) Greece and Eome, Egypt and 
Judea, and all the other distinguished States of antiqui- 
ty, were indebted for their great prosperity and high 
civilization^ 'a prosperity and a civilization which appear 
almost miraculous, when we look to their ignorance of 
L 



242 APPENDIX. 

the physical sciences. In the moral sciences they were 
our equals, in the fine arts vastly our superiors. Their 
poetry, their painting, their sculpture, their drama, their 
elocution, and their architecture, are models which we 
imitate, but never equal. In the science of government 
and of morals, in pure metaphysics, and in all the walks 
of intellectual philosophy, we have been beating the air 
with our wings or revolving in circles, but have not ad- 
vanced an inch. Kant is not ahead of Aristotle — and 
Juvenal has expressed in little more than a line the mod- 
ern utilitarian morality — 

Quis enim virtutem amplectitur ipsam 
Proeniia si tollas ? 

Terence, himself a slave, with a heart no doubt filled 
with the kindly affections which the relation of master 
and slave begets, uttered the loftiest sentiment that ever 
emanated from uninspired man : 

Homo sum ; humani nihil a me alienum puto.* 

But this high civilization and domestic slavery did not 
merely co-exist, they were cause and effect. Every 
scholar whose mind is at all imbued with ancient history 
and literature, sees that Greece and Koine were indebted 
to this institution alone for the taste, the leisure and the 
means to cultivate their heads and their hearts ; had they 
been tied down to Yankee notions of thrift, they might 
have produced a Franklin, with his " penny saved is a 
penny gained \ " they might have. had utilitarian philos- 

* The line and a half from Juvenal expresses the philosophy and 
morale of free society : that from Terence the moral of slave so- 
ciety. 



APPENDIX. 243 

ophers and invented the spinning jenny, but they never 
would have produced a poet, an orator, a sculptor or 
an, architect ; they would never have uttered a lofty 
sentiment, achieved a glorious feat in war, or created a 
single work of art. 

A modern Yankee, or a Dutchman, is the fair result 
of liberty and equality. French character has not yet 
been subdued and tamed into insignificance by their 
new institutions \ and besides, the pursuit of arms ele- 
vates and purifies the sentiments of Frenchmen. In 
what is the Yankee or Dutchman comparable to the 
Roman, Athenian or Spartan ? In nothing save his 
care of his pelf and his skill in driving a bargain. 
The ruins of Thebes, of Nineveh, and of Balbec, the 
obelisks and pyramids of Egypt, the lovely and time- 
defying relics of Roman and Grecian art, the Doric 
column and the Gothic spire, alike attest the taste, the 
genius and the energy of society where slavery existed. 

Quis locus, 
Qace regio in terris non nostri plena laboris? 

And now Equality where are thy monuments ? And 
Echo answers where ! Echo deep, deep, from the bow- 
els of the earth, where women and children drag out 
their lives in darkness, harnessed like horses to heavy 
cars loaded with ore. Or, perhaps, it is an echo from 
some grand, gloomy and monotonous factory, where pal- 
lid children work fourteen hours a day, and go home at 
night to sleep in damp cellars. It may be too, this cel- 
lar contains aged parents too old to work, and cast off 
by their employer to die. Great railroads and mighty 
steamships too, thou mayest boast, but still the opera- 



244 APPENDIX. 

tives who construct them are beings destined to poverty 
and neglect. Not a vestige of art canst thou boast; 
not a ray of genius illumes thy handiwork. The sordid 
spirit of mammon presides o'er all, and from all pro" 
ceed the sighs and groans of the oppressed. 

Domestic slavery in the Southern States has pro- 
duced the same results in elevating the character of the 
master that it did in Greece and Rome. j He is lofty 
and independent in his sentiments, generous, affection- 
ate, brave and eloquent; he is superior to the North- 
erner in every thing but the arts of thrift. History 
proves this. A Yankee sometimes gets hold of the 
reins of State, attempts Apollo, but acts Phaeton. 
Scipio and Aristides, Calhoun and Washington, are the 
noble results of domestic slavery. Like Egyptian obe-~ 
lisks 'mid the waste of time — simple, severe, sublime, — 
they point ever heavenward, and lift the soul by their 
examples. Adams and Van Buren, cunning, complex 
and tortuous, are fit exponents of the selfish system of 
universal liberty.* Coriolanus, marching to the gates 
of Rome with dire hate and deadly indignation, is 
grand and noble in his revenge. Adams and Van 
Buren, insidiously striking with reptile fangs at the 
South, excite in all bosoms hatred and contempt; 
but we will not indulge in sweeping denuncia- 
tion. In public and in private life, the North 
has many noble and generous souls. Men who, 

*The North was pushing the WilLot Proviso -when this was 
written. We wrote under angry excitement. We did Mr. 
Van Buren injustice and the North injustice. We believe Mr. 
Van Buren thoroughly patriotic, though wrong on the Proviso; 
and we think Northerners more fanatical than selfish. 



APPENDIX. 245 

like Webster and Cass, Dickinson and Winthrop,* 
can soar in lofty eloquence beyond the narrow preju- 
dices of time and place, see man in all his relations, 
and contemn the narrow morality which makes the per- 
formance of one duty the excuse for a thousand crimes. 
We speak only of the usual and common effects of 
slavery and of equality. The Turk, half civilized as 
he is, exhibits the manly, noble and generous traits of 
character peculiar to the slave owner ; he is hospitable, 
generous, truthful, brave, and strictly honest. In many 
respects, he is the finest specimen of humanity to be 
found in the world. 

But the chief and far most important enquiry is, 
how does slavery affect the condition of the slave ? One 
of the wildest sects of Communists in France proposes 
not only to hold all property in common, but to divide 
the profits, not according to each man's in-put and la- 
bor, but according to each man's wants. Now this is 
precisely the system of domestic slavery with us. We 
provide for each slave, in old age and in infancy, in 
sickness and in health, not according to his labor, but 
according to his wants. The master's wants are more 
costly and refined, and he therefore gets a larger share 
of the profits. A Southern farm is the beau ideal of 
Communism; it is a joint concern, in which the slave 
consumes more than the master, of the coarse products, 
and is far happier, because although the concern may 
fail, he is always sure of a support ; he is only transfer- 
red to another master to participate in the profits of 



*We had not seen Mr. "Wmthrop's late speech when this was 
written. 



246 APPENDIX. 

another concern; he marries when he pleases, because 
he knows he will have to work no more with a family 
than without one, and whether he live or die, that family 
will be taken care of; he exhibits all the pride of own" 
ership, despises a partner in a smaller concern, "a 
poor man's negro/' boasts of "our crops, horses, 
fields and cattle ;" and is as happy as a human being 
can be. And why should he not? — he enjoys as much 
of the fruits of the farm as he is capable of doing, and 
the wealthiest can do no more. Great wealth brings 
many additional cares, but few additional enjoyments. 
Our stomachs do not increase in capacity with our for- 
tunes. We want no more clothing to keep us warm. 
We may create new wants, but we cannot create new 
pleasures. The intellectual enjoyments which wealth 
affords are probably balanced by the new cares it brings 
along with it. 

There is no rivalry, no competition to get employment 
among slaves, as among free laborers. Nor is there a 
war between master and slave. The master's interest 
prevents his reducing the slave's allowance or wages in 
infancy or sickness, for he might lose the slave by so 
doing. His feeling for his slave never permits him to 
stint him in old age. The slaves are all well fed, well 
clad, have plenty of fuel, and are happy. They have 
no dread of the future — no fear of want. A state of 
dependence is the only condition in which reciprocal 
affection can exist among human beings — the only 
situation in which the war of competition ceases, and 
peace, amity and good will arise. A state of indepen- 
dence always begets more or less of jealous rivalry and 
hostility. A man loves his children because they are 



APPENDIX. 247 

weak, helpless and dependent; he loves his wife for 
similar reasons. When his children grow up and as- 
sert their independence, he is apt to transfer his affec- 
tion to his grand-children. He ceases to love his wife 
when she becomes masculine or rebellious; but slaves 
are always dependent, never the rivals of their master. 
Hence, though men are often found at variance with 
wife or children, we never saw one who did not like his 
slaves, and rarely a slave who was not devoted to his 
master. "I am thy servant !" disarms me of the 
power of master. Every man feels the beauty, force 
and truth of this sentiment of Sterne. But he who 
acknowledges its truth, tacitly admits that dependence 
is a tie of affection, that the relation of master an$ 
slave is one of mutual good will. Volumes written on 
the subject would not prove as much as this single sen- 
timent. It has found its way to the heart of every 
reader, and carried conviction along with it. The slave- 
holder is like other men ; he will not tread on the worm 
nor break the bruised reed. The ready submission of 
the slave, nine times out of ten, disarms his wrath even 
when the slave has offended. The habit of command 
may make him imperious and fit him for rule ; but he 
is only imperious when thwarted or crossed by his 
equals ; he would scorn to put on airs of command 
among blacks, whether slaves or free ; he always speaks 
to them in a kind and subdued tone. We go farther, 
and say the slave-holder is better than others — because 
he has greater occasion for the exercise of the affec- 
tions. His whole life is spent in providing for the 
minutest wants of others, in taking care of them in sick- 



248 APPENDIX. 

ness and in health. Hence he is the least selfish of 
men. Is not the old bachelor who retires to seclusion, 
always selfish ? Is not the head of a large family al- 
most always kind and benevolent? And is not the 
slave-holder the head of the largest family ? Nature 
compels master and slave to be friends ; nature makes 
employers and free laborers enemies. 

The institution of slavery gives full development and 
full play to the affections. Free society chills, stints 
and eradicates them. In a homely way the farm will 
support all, and we are not in a hurry to send our chil- 
dren into the world, to push their way and make their 
fortunes, with a capital of knavish maxims. We are 
better husbands, better fathers, better friends, and bet- 
ter neighbors than our Northern brethren. The tie of 
kindred to the fifth degree is often a tie of affection 
with us. First cousins are scarcely acknowledged at 
the North, and even children are prematurely pushed 
off into the world. Love for others is the organic law 
of our society, as self-love is of theirs. 

Every social structure must have its substratum. ' 
In free society this substratum, the weak, poor and 
ignorant, is , borne down upon and oppressed with con- 
tinually increasing weight by all above. We have 
solved the problem of relieving this substratum from 
the pressure from above. The slaves are the substra- 
tum, and the master's feelings and interests alike pre- 
vent him from bearing down upon and oppresaing 
them. With us the pressure on society is like that 
of air or water, so equally diffused as not any where 
to be felt. With them it is the pressure of the enor- 



APPENDIX. 249 

mous screw, never yielding, continually increasing. 
Free laborers are little better than trespassers on this 
earth given by Grocl to all mankind. The birds of the 
air have nests, and the foxes have holes, but they have 
not where to lay their heads. They are driven to cities 
to dwell in damp and crowded cellars, and thousands 
are even forced to lie in the open air. This accounts 
for the rapid growth of Northern cities. The feudal 
Barons were more generous and hospitable and less 
tyrannical than the petty land-holders of modern times. 
Besides, each inhabitant of the barony was considered 
as having some right of residence, some claim to pro- 
tection from the Lord of the Manor. A few of them 
escaped to the municipalities for purposes of trade, and 
to enjoy a larger liberty. Now penury and the want of 
a home drive thousands to towns. The slave always 
has a home, always an interest in the proceeds of the 
soil. 

An intelligent New Englander, who was much op- 
posed to negro slavery, boasting of his own country, 
told us that native New Englanclers rarely occupied 
the place of domestic or body servants, or that of hired 
day laborers on public works. Emigrants alone served 
as menials, cleansed the streets, and worked on rail- 
roads and canals. New England is busy importing 
white free laborers for the home market, and catching 
negroes in Africa for the Brazilian market. Some of 
the negroes die on the passage, but few after they 
arrive in Brazil. The masters can't afford to neglect 
them. Many of the white laborers die on the passage 
of cholera and other diseases occasioned by filth and 



250 APPENDIX. 

crowding — a fourth of them probably in the first year 
after they arrive, for the want of employment or the 
neglect of employers. The horrors of the middle pas- 
sage are nothing to the horrors of a deck passage up 
the Mississippi when cholera prevails, or the want, 
penury and exposure that emigrants are subjected to 
in our large cities. England, too, has a tender con- 
science about slavery, but she is importing captured 
African slaves into her colonies to serve as apprentices, 
and extending this new species of slave trade even to 
Asia. a J2xpel nature with a fork, she will soon re- 
turn. '^Slavery is natural and necessary, and will in 
some form insinuate itself into all civilized society, 
The domestic slave trade is complained of, and justly 
too, because it severs family ties. It is one of .-the 
evils of slavery, and no institution is without its evils. 
But how is it with New England ? Are none of the 
free, the delicately reared and enlightened forced to quit 
the domestic hearth and all its endearments, to seek a 
living among strangers ? Delicacy forbids our dwelling 
on this painful topic. The instances are before our 
eyes. What would induce a Virginian, rich or poor, 
to launch such members of his family unattended on 
the cold world. 

More than half of the white citizens of the North are 
common laborers, either in the field, or as body or house 
servants. They perform the same services that our 
slaves do. They serve their employers for hire ; they 
have quite as little option whether they shall so serve, 
or not, as our slaves, for they cannot live without their 
wages. Their hire or wages, except with the healthy 



APPENDIX. 251 

and able-bodied, are not half what we allow our slaves, 
for it is wholly insufficient for their comfortable main- 
tenance, whilst we always keep our slaves in comfort, in 
return for their past, present, or expected labor. The 
socialists say wages is slavery. It is a gross libel on 
slavery. Wages are given in time of vigorous health 
and strength, and denied when most needed, when sick- 
ness or old age has overtaken us. The slave is never 
without a master to maintain him. The free laborer, 
though willing to work, cannot always find an employer. 
He is then without a home and without wages ! In a 
densely peopled country, where the supply of laborers 
exceeds the demand, wages is worse than slavery. Oh ! 
Liberty and Equality, to what a sad pass do you bring 
your votaries ! This is the exact condition to which 
the mass of society is reduced in France and England, 
and to which it is rapidly approximating in our North- 
ern States. This state of things brought about the 
late revolution in France. The Socialist rulers un- 
dertook to find employment, put the laborers of Paris 
to work, transplanting trees and digging the earth. 
This experiment worked admirably in all but one re- 
spect. The government could find employment, but 
could not find wages. The Right to Employment ! 
Frenchmen deluged Paris with fraternal gore to vindi- 
cate this right. The right to live when you are strong 
enough to work, for it is then only you want employ- 
ment. Poor as this boon would be, it is one which 
Liberty and Equality cannot confer. If it were con- 
ferred, the free laborer's condition would still be below 



252 APPENDIX. 

the slave' s, for the wages of the slave are paid whether 
he is fit for employment or Dot. 

Oh carry, carry rae back to old Virginia shore, 
For I am old and feeble grown, 
And cannot work any more. 

Liberty and Equality, thou art humble in thy preten- 
sions; thou askest little. But that little inexorable 
fate denies thee. Literally and truly, u darkness, 
death and black despair surround thee." 

In France, England, Scotland and Ireland, the ge- 
nius of famine hovers o'er the land. Emigrants, like a 
flock of hungry pigeons or Egyptian locusts, are alight- 
no; on the North. Every screen thing; will soon be 
iconsumed. The hollow, bloated prosperity which she 
now enjoys is destined soon to pass away. Her wealth 
does not increase with her numbers ; she is dependent 
for the very necessaries of life on the slaveholding 
States. If those States cut off commercial intercourse 
with her, as they certainly will do if she does not 
speedily cease interference with slavery, she will be 
without food or clothing for her overgrown population. 
She is already threatened with a social revolution. The 
right to separate property in laud is not only questioned 
by many, but has been successfully denied in the case 
of che Anti-Kenters. Judges and Governors are elected 
upon pledges that they will sustain those who deny this 
right and defy the law. The editor of the most influ- 
ential paper in the North, lately a member of Congress, 
is carrying on open war, not only against the right of 
property, but against every institution held sacred by 



APPENDIX. 253 

society. A people who can countenance and patronise 
such doctrines, are almost ripe to carry those doctrines 
into practice. An insurrection of the poor against the 
rich may happen speedily among them. Should it oc- 
cur, they have no means of suppressing it. No stand- 
ing army, no efficient militia, no strength in their State 
governments. Society is hurrying on to the gulf of 
agrarianisin, and no port of safety is in sight; no 
remedy for the evils with which it is beset has been 
suggested, save the remedies of the Socialists ; reme- 
dies tried in France and proved to be worthless. Pop- 
ulation is too dense to introduce negro slaves. White 
men will not submit to be slaves, and are not fitted for 
slavery if they would. To the European race some de- 
gree of liberty is necessary, though famine stare them 
in the face. We are informed in Holy Writ, that God 
ordained certain races of men for slaves. The wisest 
philosopher of ancient times, with the experience of 
slavery before his eyes, proclaimed the same truth. 
Modern Abolitionists, wiser than Moses and Aristotle, 
have discovered that all men should be free. They 
have yet to discover the means of sustaining their lives 
in a state of freedom. , 

At the slaveholding South all is peace, quiet, plenty 
and contentment. We have no mobs, no trades unions, 
no strikes for higher wages, no armed resistance to the 
law, but little jealousy of the rich by the poor/' We 
have* but few in our jails, and fewer in our poor houses. 
We produce enough of the comforts and necessaries of 
life for a population three or four times as numerous as 
ours. We are wholly exempt from the torrent of pau- 



254 APPENDIX. 

perisrn, crime, agrarianisni, and infidelity which Eu- 
rope is pouring from her jails and alms houses on the 
already crowded North. Population increases slowly , 
wealth rapidly. In the tide water region of Eastern 
Virginia, as far as our experience extends, the crops 
have doubled in fifteen years, whilst the population has 
been almost stationary. In the same period the lands, 
owing to improvements of the soil and the many fine 
houses erected in the country, have nearly doubled in 
value. This ratio of improvement has been approxi- 
mated or exceeded wherever in the South slaves are 
numerous. We have enough for the present, and no 
Malthusian spectres frightening us for the future. 
Wealth is more equally distributed than at the North, 
where a few millionaires own most of the property of 
the country. (These millionaires are men of cold hearts 
and weak minds; they know how to make money, but 
not how to use it, either for the benefit of themselves 
or of others.) High intellectual and moral attainments, 
refinement of head and heart, give standing to a man 
in the South, however poor he may be. Money is, 
with few exceptions, the only thing that ennobles at 
the North. We have poor among us, but none who 
are over-worked and under-fed. We do not crowd cities 
because lands are abundant and their owners kind, 
merciful and hospitable. The poor are as hospitable 
as the rich, the negro as the white man. Nobody 
dreams of turning a friend, a relative, or a stranger 
from his door. The very negro who deems it no crime 
to steal, would scorn to sell his hospitality. We have 
no loafers, because the poor relative or friend who bor- 



APPENDIX. 255 

rows our horse, or spends a week under our roof, is a 
welcome guest. The loose economy, the wasteful mode 
of living at the South, is a blessing when rightly con- 
sidered; it keeps want, scarcity and famine at a dis- 
tance, because it leaves room for retrenchment. The 
nice, accurate economy of France, England and New 
England, keeps society always on the verge of famine, 
because it leaves no room to retrench, that is to live 
on a part only of what they now consume. Our so- 
ciety exhibits no appearance of precocity, no symptoms 
of decay. A long course of continuing improvement is 
in prospect before us, with no limits which human 
foresight can descry. Actual liberty and equality with 
our white population has been approached much nearer 
than in the free States. Few of our whites ever work 
as day laborers, none as cooks, scullions, ostlers, body 
servants, or in other menial capacities. One free citi- 
zen does not lord it over another; hence that feeling 
of independence and equality that distinguishes us; 
hence that pride of character, that self-respect, that 
gives us ascendancy when we come in contact with 
Northerners^ It is a distinction to be a Southerner, as 
it was once to be a Roman citizen. ^ 

In Virginia we are about to reform our constitution. 
A fair opportunity will be afforded to draw a wider line 
of distinction between freemen and slaves, to elevate 
higher the condition of the citizen, to inspire every 
white man with pride of rank and position. We should 
do more for education. We have to educate but half 
of society, at the North they attempt to educate all. 
Besides, here all men have time for self-education, for 



256 APPENDIX. 

reading and reflection. Nobody works long hours. 
We should prohibit the exercise of mechanic arts to 
slaves (except on their master's farm) and to free ne- 
groes. We should extend the right of sufferage to all 
native Virginians, and to Southerners who move to 
Virginia, over twenty-one years of age. We should 
permit no foreigner and no Northerner, who shall here- 
after remove to the State, to vote in elections. We 
should have a small, well drilled, paid militia, to take 
the place of the patrol and the present useless militia 
system. All men of good character should serve on 
juries without regard to property qualification. Thus 
we should furnish honorable occupation to all our citi- 
zens, whilst we cultivated and improved their minds 
by requiring them all to take part in the administration 
of justice and of government. We should thus make 
poverty as honorable as it was in Greece and Rome ; 
for to be a Virginian would be a higher distinction 
than wealth or title could bestow. We should cease to 
be a bye-word and reproach among nations for our 
love of the almighty dollar. We should be happy in 
the confidence that our posterity would never occupy 
the place of slaves, as half mankind must ever do in 
free society.- Until the last fifteen years, our great 
error was to imitate Northern habits, customs and in- 
stitutions. Our circumstances are so opposite to theirs, 
that whatever suits them is almost sure not to suit us. 
Until that time, in truth, we distrusted our social sys- 
tem. We thought slavery morally wrong, we thought 
it would not last, we thought it unprofitable. The Abo- 
litionists assailed us; we looked more closely into our 



APPENDIX. 257 

circumstancea ; became satisfied that slavery was morally 
right, that it would continue ever to exist, that it was as 
profitable as it was humane. This begat self-confidence, 
self-reliance. Since then our improvement has been rapid. 
Now we may safely say, that we are the happiest, most 
contented and prosperous people on earth. The inter- 
meddling of foreign pseudo-philanthopists in our affairs, 
though it has occasioned great irritation and indigna- 
tion, has been of inestimable advantage in teaching us 
to form a right estimate of our condition. This inter- 
meddling will soon cease ; the poor at home in thunder 
tones demand their whole attention and all their charity. 
Self-preservation will compel them to listen to their de- 
mands. Moreover, light is breaking in upon us from 
abroad. All parties in England now agree that the 
attempt to put down the slave trade has greatly aggrava- 
ted its horrors, without at all diminishing the trade itself. 
It is proposed to withdraw her fleet from the African 
coast. France has already given notice that she will 
withdraw hers. America will follow the example. The 
emancipation of the slaves in the TTest Indies is ad- 
mitted to have been a failure in all respects. The late 
masters have been ruined, the liberated slaves refuse to 
work, and are fast returning to the savage state, and 
England herself has sustained a severe blow in the 
present diminution and prospective annihilation of 
the once enormous imports from her West Indian 
colonies. 

In conclusion, we will repeat the propositions, in 
somewjiat different phraseology, with which we set out. 
Firs^-That Liberty and Equality, with their concomi- 



258 APPENDIX. 

tant Free Competition, beget a war in society that is 
as destructive to its weaker members as the custom of 
exposing the deformed and crippled children. Sec- 
ondly — That slavery protects the weaker members of 
society just as do the relations of parent, guardian and 
hust>and, and is as necessary, as natural, and almost as 
universal as those relations/ Is our demonstration im- 
perfect ? Does universal experience sustain our theory ? 
Should the conclusions to which we have arrived ap- 
pear strange and startling, let them therefore not be re- 
jected without examination. The world has had but 
little opportunity to contrast the working of Liberty and 
Equality with the old order of things, which always par- 
took more or less of the character of domestic slavery. 
The strong prepossession in the public mind in favor of 
the new system, makes it reluctant to attribute the evil 
phenomena which it exhibits, to defects inherent in the 
system itself. That these defects should not have been 
foreseen and pointed out by any process of a priori 
reasoning, is but another proof of the fallibility of hu- 
man sagacity and foresight when attempting to foretell 
the operation of new institutions. It is as much as hu- 
man reason can do, when examining the complex frame 
of society, to trace effects back to their causes— much 
more than it can do, to foresee what effects new causes 
will produce. We invite investigation. 



WHAT SHALL BE DONE 

WITH 

THE FREE NEGROES? 



Nearly one half the civilized world is deeply inter- 
ested in the solution of this question — but especially 
France, England and America. Already the emanci- 
pation of the blacks has occasioned many evils, and 
been productive of no ostensible good to themselves or 
to the whites. In the West Indian dominions of France 
and England, all industry is paralyzed, and the most 
fertile islands in the world threaten soon to become 
desert wastes, infested with lawless savages. The blacks 
so far outnumber the whites, that the latter will remove, 
or remain to witness the acting over again the tragedy 
of St. Domingo. The crusades occasioned less human 
suffering than has ensued or is certain to ensue from 
the emancipation of the blacks in the West Indies. 
The crusades, with all their iniquities, gave the first 
great impulse to civilization. West Indian emancipa- 
tion has expelled civilization and veiled those lovely 
Isles with the thick curtain of ignorance and supersti- 
tion. The masters have been robbed of their farms 
and of their slaves, with more millions than even Crce- 
sus dreampt of — yet their loss is as nothing compared to 
the loss the slaves have sustained in being deprived of 
the tutelary guardianship of those masters. The mas- 



260 APPENDIX. 

ters may return to a civilized land — a land of law and 
order — there to enjoy the blessings of civilized life, per- 
haps to retrieve their ruined fortunes — or better still, 
to learn resignation to their fate at the altar of the 
Christian God. The emancipated negroes do not work, 
and hunger will soon drive thern to every sort of crime. 
The light of Christianity, which was fast spreading 
amongst them, is destined to speedy extinction, and vile 
superstisions will supply its place. It is hardly too 
bold a figure to say that in losing his master, the negro 
has lost all hope here and hereafter. The civilized 
world has sustained a great loss in the diminution of 
the products of those Isles, which products have be- 
come the common food of half of mankind. But it is 
needless to enumerate the many evils that short-sighted 
philanthropy has inflicted on the West Indies and on 
the world at large, by emancipation, and equally need- 
less to speculate about the remedy : there is no remedy, 
and it is not our business to propose it if there were. 

In the United States the situation of the free blacks 
is becoming worse every day. The silly attempts of 
the Abolitionists to put them on a footing of equality 
with the white?, has exasperated the laboring whites at 
the North, and excited odium and suspicion against 
them at the South. The natural antipathies of race 
have been fanned into such a degree of excitement, that 
the free negro is bandied from pillar to post — from 
North to South and from South to North, till not a ray 
of hope is left him of a quiet, permanent residence any 
where, so long as he remains free. Illinois and Cali- 
fornia will not permit him to enter their dominions — 



APPENDIX. 261 

Ohio places him under severe conditions, and is now 
moving to expel him altogether, and Virginia also pro- 
poses to send him back to Africa. Mobs in our North- 
ern cities drive him from his home and hunt him 
like a wild beast. Two great movements, or rather one 
great and one very small movement, may be observed 
in constant and busy operation as to the negro race. 
The small movement is that of the fanatical Abolition- 
ists, who would free the whole race and put them on a 
social and political equality with the whites. The great 
movement is that proceeding from hostility of race, and 
proposes to get rid of the negroes altogether, not to 
free them. This movement is not confined to the Xorth. 
Thousands, we regret to say, at the South, who think 
slavery a blessing to the negro, believe the negro a curse 
to the country. So far as the slaves are concerned, this 
opinion is fast changing. Men begin to look more 
closely at what the slaveholders have been doing since 
our Revolution, and find that they have been exceeded 
in skill, enterprise and industry, by no people under 
the sun. They have settled a vast territory from the 
Alleghany to the La Platte — from the Fdo Grande to 
the Ohio, contending all the. while wiih blood-thirsty 
savages and a climate more to be dreaded than even 
those savages themselves — and are already producing a 
greater agricultural surplus than any people in the 
world. They see, too, that the condition of the white 
man is elevated and ecpaalized, for the blacks perform 
all menial duties and occupy the place of servants. 
The white laborers of the North think the existence of 
negroes at the North as free, or at the South as slaves, 



262 APPENDIX. 

I injurious to themselves. They do not like the conipe- 
| tition of human beings who have all the physical pow- 
ers of men, with the wants only of brutes. Free Soil- 
ism pretty well represents and embodies this feeling. 
It is universal at the North, because the hostility to 
negroes — the wish to get rid of their competition is uni- 
versal there. It excludes free negroes from California 
as well as slaves, showing that the Wilrnot Proviso is 
directed against the negro race — not against slavery. 
This great movement, which proposes to get rid of ne- 
groes, rather than of slavery, is gathering strength every 
day, and so far as the free negroes are concerned it 
must soon sweep them away ; for neither the feel- 
ings nor the interests of any part of the community, 
except of a few crazy Abolitionists, can be enlisted in 
their behalf. The slaves have masters to guard and 
protect them — and guard, protect and hold them they 
will, cost what it may. 

The free negroes are no doubt an intolerable nui- 
sance. They blight the prosperity of every village and 
of every country neighborhood where they settle. They 
are thieves from necessity, for nature has made them so 
improvident they cannot in health provide for sickness, 
in youth for old age, nor in summer for winter. Na- 
ture formed them for a climate where all their wants 
were supplied abundantly by her liberal hand at every 
season. We knew their natures when we set them free. 
Should we blame them, or censure ourselves ? We knew 
they were not fitted for liberty, and yet conferred lib- 
erty on them. Our wiser ancestors made them slaves, 
because as slaves they might be made civilized, useful 



APPENDIX. 263 

and christian beings. We subject children till twenty- 
one years of age to the control of their parents, or ap* 
point guardians for them. We subject wives to the 
dominion of their husbands — apprentices to their mas- 
ters. We permit sailors and soldiers to sell their liber- 
ties for terms of years. We send criminals to jails 
and penitentiaries, and lunatics to hospitals! In all 
these cases, we take away the liberties of the whites, 
either for the benefit of individuals or for the good of 
society. We act upon the principle that no one is en- 
titled to liberty who will abuse it to the detriment of 
himself or of others. The law curtails and restricts 
the freedom of the wisest and the best; — the straight 
jacTcet and manacles of ii:on are applied to the weakest 
and most wicked. There is no perfect liberty with the 
whites, but every degree of slavery, from law to straight 
jackets. The free blacks, who most need the control 
of masters, guardians, curators or committees are left 
to the enjoyment of the largest liberty. Law alone is 
expected to control and regulate their conduct. We 
had as well publish laws to our herds and flocks. Men, 
to be governed by mere law, must possess great intel- 
ligence, and have acquired habits of self-control and 
self-denial. The whites from 15 to 21 years of age 
lack not intelligence, but habits of self-control, to fit 
them for government by law alone. The arbitrary will 
of the parent or guardian must be superadded to the 
mandates of the law, to save them from the indiscre- 
tions into which their feelings and their passions would 
lead them. The free negroes as a class, have less in- 
telligence and less self-control, than the whites over 15 



264 APPENDIX. 

years of age. A good government graduates as nicely 
as is practicable, each man's liberty to his capacity for 
its enjoyment — it is obliged, however, to establish gen- 
eral rules, and thus occasions many cases of individ- 
ual hardship. The white male adults, over twenty-one 
years of age, are presumed to possess enough of virtue, 
intelligence and self-control, to be left with no other 
control than that of the law — yet of those we meet 
with thousands who from habitual drunkenness, from 
excessive improvidence and extravagance, or from strong 
criminal propensities, are wholly unfitted for the gov- 
ernment of mere law, and stand in need of the will of 
a superior to control their conduct, and save them from 
ruining themselves, their friends and families. On the 
other hand, we find many instances of wisdom and pru- 
dence among whites under 21 years of age, whom the 
law, nevertheless, subjects to the control of guardians 
and parents often less wise, less virtuous, and less pru- 
dent than themselves. In subjecting the free blacks 
to the will of white masters, fewer instances of injustice 
of this kind would occur, than now occur with the 
whites, because as a class they are less fitted for self- 
government than the whites between the ages of 15 
and 21. A free negro ! Why, the very term seems 
an absurdity. It is our daily boast, and experience veri- 
fies it, that the Anglo-Saxons of America are the only 
people in the world fitted for freedom The negro's is 
not human freedom, but the wild and vicious license of 
the fox, the wolf or the hawk. He is, from the neces- 
sity of his nature, a very Ishmaelite, whose hand is 
against every man, and every man's hand is against 



APPENDIX. 265 

him. It is as much the duty of government to take 
away liberty from those who abuse it, as to confer it 
on those who use it properly. It practises every day, 
as we have shewn, on this principle, in its treatment of 
the whites, and why should it hesitate to do so in re- 
gard to the blacks ? It is the object and duty of gov- 
ernment to protect men, not merely from wrong and in- 
justice from others, but from the consequences of their 
own vices, imprudence and improvidence. The hum- 
blest member of society, no matter what the color of his 
skin, has a right to this protection.^ The experience of 
all ages, and of all countries, shows that this protec- 
tion to a weaker race like the negro, living among a su- 
perior race, can only be given by bestowing on him a 
master whose will shall be the law of his conduct, 
whose skill and foresight shall amass and provide for 
him in sickness and in old age, and whose power shall 
shield him from the consequences of his own improvi- 
dence. /The vassalage and serfdom of Europe, the 
slavery of America, and the peonage of Mexico, alike 
point to this as the natural and proper method of gov- 
erning free negroes. The wisdom of the common law, 
and indeed of all ancient codes, distinctly teaches the 
same truth; for guardians, parents, husbands, commit- 
tees, and various officers, are but masters by another 
name. They are all intended to supply, in more or 
less degree, that want of self-control which unfits large 
classes of the whites for self-government. But there is 
a peculiar necessity for some measure of this kind, with 
regard to the blacks, growing out of the antipathies of 
race. They are threatened with violent extermination. 
M 



266 APPENDIX. 

The fate of the Indians shows that they will be exter- 
minated, if they continue so useless and so troublesome. 
Had the Indian been useful as a slave, he would have 
survived and become a civilized and christian being; 
but he was found as useless, as troublesome, and as in- 
tractable as a beast of prey, and has shared the fate of 
a beast of prey. The negro, in the condition of slavery, 
is a happy, contented, and useful being. It is the 
state for which nature intended, and to which our an- 
cestors, quite as wise and virtuous* as ourselves, con- 
signed him. We have fully and fairly tried the ex- 
periment of freeing him • we have witnessed its uni- 
versal and deplorable failure, and it is now our right 
and our duty, to listen to the voice of wisdom and ex- 
perience, and re-consign him to the only condition for 
which he is suited. 

There is another and an urgent reason why his very 
existence requires that he should be subjected to some 
modification of slavery. His lot is cast among the 
Anglo-Saxon race, and what people can stand free com- 
petition with that race ? The Romans conquered Eng- 
land, and the ancient Britons flourished and became 
civilized under their rule. The Saxon, Dane and Nor- 
man came, and nothing remains to tell of the exist- 
ence of the Britons but the names of a few rivers. 
The Indian is exterminated from Maine to Georgia, 
the Hindoos are perishing under British rule by mil- 
lions, the Spaniard is hardly heard of in Florida, and 
Peonage alone can save the Mexican from annihilation. 
From the days of Hengist and Horsa, to those of Hous- 
ton, the same adventurous, rapacious, exterminating 



APPENDIX. 267 

spirit has characterised the race. Can the negro live 
with all his reckless improvidence under the shade of 
this Upas tree, whose deadly poison spares no other 
race ? Is he fitted to compete with a people who, in 
the struggle of life, have outstripped and exterminated 
all other nations with whom they have come in con- 
tact? No. Throwing out of view the signs of the 
times, pregnant with growing hate and hostility to the 
free negro, the experience of the past shows that his 
present condition is hopeless ; but make him property, 
and this same Anglo-Saxon will protect, guard and 
cherish him, for no people on earth love property 
more, will go greater lengths, so far as danger is con- 
cerned, to obtain it, or take better care of it after it is 
obtained. 

We will not undertake to decide what degree or modi- 
fication of servitude shall be adopted, but will suggest 
that peonage, which is probably one of its mildest forms, 
might be instituted. To attain this, it is only neces- 
sary to repeal so much of the common law as prevents 
a man's parting with his personal liberty. Indeed, the 
common law, in the cases of soldiers and sailors, per- 
mits even white men to sell themselves and bind their 
persons for a term of years. Grant the same privilege 
to the free negro at all times, and we think there will 
be few of them left free in ten years to come. They 
cannot now, we know from experience, obtain much 
more than half the yearly hire of slaves,! because the 
hirer has no security that they will remain till the end 
of the year. Their improvidence, and their desire to 
obtain the protection of some white man, would drive 



268 APPENDIX. 

them all into contracts of this kind. The nuisance 
would thus be abated, and in its place we should ac- 
quire a class of strong, healthy laborers. If this plan 
did not work well, the State authorities should, at the 
beginning of each year, hire all those out who owned 
not enough property to support themselves. Part of the 
hires might be paid over to them, and the balance re- 
tained as a fund to support the infants, the aged, and in- 
firm here, or used as a means to send them all to Africa. 
If experience showed that nothing short of absolute 
slavery would meet the exigencies of the case, then give 
them a year's notice to quit the State, or be sold into un- 
conditional slavery. This last alternative would still place 
them in a situation of much greater security and comfort 
than they now any where enjoy, or can ever probably en- 
joy, in a state of unlimited freedom. We think it a more 
humane measure, and a more politic one, than to send 
them to Africa. If it be necessary, it must be right. 
Reducing men to slavery has been practised through- 
out all time, and by men as good, and as wise as our- 
selves. Practised too, continually, upon men much bet- 
ter, much wiser, and much more suited for freedom 
than the negro. There is more of selfishness, less of 
exalted, chivalrous disinterested virtue in this utilitarian 
age, than in most of those with which we are acquainted, 
that have preceded it. We only 

Compound for sins we are inclined to, 
By damning those we have no mind to. 

Liberty is the great hobby of this money-making age, 
and the over-ruling argument in its favor is borrowed 
from the arithmetic. "Free labor is more productive 
than slave labor. It is cheaper to hire the laborer, 



APPENDIX. 269 

when you want him, and turn him out to starve when 
you have done with him, than to buy a slave and sup- 
port him through all the seasons of the year, and 
through all the periods of his life. Besides, the free 
man whose very life depends on it, will work harder 
than the slave, who is sure of a support, whether he 
works or not/ 7 Since the slave-trade is abolished, which 
was a lucrative and favorite pursuit of the Yankees and 
English, those gentry have, from the above interested 
calculations, turned abolitionists. Our Southern pa- 
triots, at the time of the Revolution, finding negroes 
expensive and useless, became warm anti-slavery men. 
We, their wiser sons, having learned to make cotton 
and sugar, find slavery very useful and profitable, and 
think it a most excellent institution. We of the South 
advocate slavery, no doubt, from just as selfish motives 
as induce the Yankees and English to deprecate it. 
We have, however, almost all human and divine author- 
ity on our side of the argument. /The Bible no where 
condemns, and throughout recognises slavery. Slavery 
has been so universal in the civilized world, and so lit- 
tle, if at all known among savages, that its occasional 
absence of late years in civilized nations, seems to in- 
dicate something wrong or rotten in their condition 
The starving state of the poor in all such countries, 
furnishes the solution of the difficulty, and indicates the 
character of the disease under which society is suffer- 
ing. They have become too poor to have slaves, whom 
the law would oblige them to support. We have never 
met with a Southern man, of late years, who did not 
think slavery a blessing to the negro race. We have 



270 APPENDIX. 

never heard a single white man maintain that this race 
was qualified for freedom, nor met with one who did not 
complain of the free negroes as a nuisance. Now, how 
strange and inconsistent in us to permit men to remain 
free, whose freedom is a curse to themselves and a nui- 
sance to society. How cruel and unwise in us not to 
extend the blessings of slavery to the free negroes, 
which work so well with the slaves. Humanity, self- 
interest, consistency, all require that we should enslave 
the free negro. "We enslave the whites whenever the 
good of the individual, or of society requires it, in the 
many instances we have cited, and leave the free negro 
to roam at large in liberty as untrammelled and un- 
constrained as that of the beasts of the field or birds of 
the air. They are restrained neither by the convention- 
alities of society, the bonds of religion, the laws of mo- 
rality, the chain of marriage, the authority of parents 
or guardians, nor by the power of a master. They 
who are least fitted for liberty are scarcely subjected to 
any governmental control whatever. 

But if tliey be qualified for liberty, so are our slaves, 
and we are acting morally wrong in retaining in bond- 
age beings who would be better off as freemen. The 
slave, if set free, would be just what the free negroes 
now are, and if that be a desirable condition, one bet- 
ter for them and for society, than that they are now in, 
we ought to set about making free negroes of them. 
Both cases are before us, we have ample experience of 
the working of both. It is not only our right, but 
our duty to cherish and encourage that condition of 



APPENDIX. 271 

the negro race which works well — to abolish that which 
works badly. 

The free negroes corrupt our slaves and make them 
less contented with their situation. Their competition 
is injurious to our white laboring citizens. Their wants 
are so few and simple, that when they do work, they 
will take lower wages than the white man can afford 
to receive ; besides, it is as well the policy as the duty 
of the State to elevate the condition of her citizens, 
not to send them in the labor market with negroes for 
competitors. Let the negro always occupy a situation 
subordinate to the white man. North and South, every 
deviation from this policy leads to violence, in which 
the blacks are the sufferers. The law cannot make ne- 
groes free if it would, because society will not tolerate 
it. The signs of the times, North and South, clearly 
show that the free negroes will be borne with no lon- 
ger by society. If the subject be promptly attended to 
by State governments, some disposition of them may be 
made consistent with humanity. If legislative action 
be delayed, the people in their primary capacity, in 
vulgar parlance mobs, will take the case in hand. We 
heard but recently, that the people in one of our coun- 
ties had given them notice to quit. Quit ! and go 
where ? To be turned out and hunted like the bagged 
fos. 



272 APPENDIX. 



II. 

Is there any good reason why men should not be 
allowed to sell their liberty? Is it wise, politic or hu- 
mane, to prevent the nian, who sees his family starving 
around him, from hiring himself so as to bind his per- 
son, even for a day, a week, or a month, to save himself 
and family from death ? Could the poor Irish sell 
themselves and families for a term of years, to the 
farmers of our Northwestern States, in order to pay 
their passage to this country, and secure them from want 
on their arrival, would there be any thing unwise or 
unmerciful in the laws which permitted it? The law 
did once permit it, for Virginia was in great part settled 
by indented servants, and by the descendants of girls 
bought up in London and sold to the planters here for 
wives. Indeed, ail women literally sell their liberties 
when they marry, and very few repent of the bargain. 
Among the civilized States of antiquity, the right to sell 
one's liberty, we believe, was universal. Is it not a 
curtailment of liberty to deny the right ? The starving 
poor would often think so. To the victim of intempe- 
rance who has just recovered from an attack of delirium 
tremens, such a right would be worth all the temperance 
societies in the world. His enervated will can no longer 
control him, and the law will not permit him to adopt 
the will of another. The law thus murders thousands 
annually, pretending all the while to guard and protect 
their rights. The army, the navy and the merchant 
service are filled with men of this description. It is the 
only refuge the law allows them. Those who were fitted 



APPENDIX. 273 

for liberty would not sell it, or if in some moment of 
misfortune they did, they would buy that liberty again 
by the exercise of great economy and industry. The 
right to purchase their own liberty has, in other coun- 
tries, been a common privilege of slaves. We mean that 
white men sold into slavery would, if worthy of liberty, 
purchase their freedom. We do not advocate any change 
of the law that would permit them to part, even for a 
day, with their personal liberty. One of the objects in 
granting such privilege to free negroes, would be to draw 
a wider line of distinction between the negroes and our 
white citizens. But in countries where there are no 
negroes, we can see no reason why the whites in all 
cases might not be allowed to sell their persons for short 
periods. Soldiers and sailors are allowed to do so for 
the defence of the nation and the benefit of commerce. 
Domestic servants and farm hands would be benefited 
themselves, and their employers also benefited, could 
they be hired by the year \ at all events, every govern- 
ment that denies this privilege of selling one's self, is 
bound to provide for its poor citizens, as well as masters 
provide for their slaves. But all governments permit 
thousands of the poor to starve — in truth, every body 
seems to have taken it for granted that this provision of 
the law is right, without having taken the trouble to 
examine into the reasons on which it is founded. The 
reasons assigned by Blackstone in his Commentaries, are 
so false and puerile, as to show that he had given no con- 
sideration to the subject. The objection that a man may 
not sell himself, because slavery puts his life in his mas- 
ter's hands, is false as to modern slavery in all civilized 



274 APPENDIX. 

countries, and 'tis with this slavery we and he too had to 
deal. The other objection, that the slave's property be- 
longs to the master, is not a necessary or universal feature 
of slavery. We would not have it so in the case of the 
free negroes, when placed, as we hope they will be, in 
some modified condition of slavery. His third objection, 
that the consideration accrues to the master, is only true 
when the slave can hold no separate property. In most 
cases, no consideration would be paid, other than protec- 
tion and support. Justice will compel us, in some cases, 
to pay hire for the free negroes, but we know from expe- 
rience that morality forbids it. We hire a free negro by 
the year — we feed and clothe him, and he is anxious to 
continue with us another year. We know that he spends 
almost every cent of his hire in vice and debauchery, yet 
he is superior to his race generally, for he is honest and 
industrious. We pay him a third less hire than we 
would give for him had he the right to bind his person. 
Free negroes generally hire for little more than half what 
slaves do : liberty costs them dear. Whilst on this sub- 
ject, we would call attention to a new kind of African 
slave-trade that prevails in our neighborhood; the free 
negro women hire out their children, and bask in the 
sun idle and unemployed themselves. We tried to per- 
suade, some days since, a young negro man, who, with 
his young wife, were desperately poor, that he would be 
better off as a slave, as he might expect soon to have a 
large family to support, and could now scarce support 
himself. He quaintly replied, " that he then would hire 
out his children and live easy." 

Blackstone, treating of the relative position of master 
arf" r v m ploys t following language: " The first 



APPENDIX. 275 

sort of servants, therefore, acknowledged by the laws of 
England, are menial servants, so called from being intra 
moenia, or domestics. The contract between them and 
their masters arises upon the hiring. If the hiring be 
general, without any particular time limited, the law 
considers it to be a hiring for a year, upon a principle of 
natural equity that the servant shall serve and the master 
maintain him throughout all the revolutions of the re- 
spective seasons, as well when there is work to be done 
as when there is not — but the contract may be made for 
any longer or smaller term. All single men, between 
twelve years old and sixty, and married ones under thirty 
years of age — and all single women between twelve and 
forty, not having any visible livelihood, are compellable 
by two justices to go out to service in husbandry or other 
specific trades for the promotion of honest industry, and 
no master can put away his servant, or servant leave his 
master, after being so retained, either before or at the 
end of his term, without a quarter's warning ; unless 
upon reasonable cause, to be allowed by a justice of the 
peace ; but they may part by consent, or make a special 
bargain." 

Now, a statute in our State, with regard to free negroes 
which should attain the ends contemplated by this Eng- 
lish statute, would rid us of the nuisance. To attain 
those ends, the contract of hiring should be for a year or 
longer period, and should bind the person. 

The Roman history contains a remarkable proof of 
the kindly and friendly relations which subordination of 
rank begets. The Plebeians all became the clients or 
vassals of some Patrician, who was bound to advise, 



276 APPENDIX. 

counsel and protect them. In all the vicissitudes of the 
Republic, during a lapse of six hundred years, we are 
told that not a single instance occurred of faithlessness 
to this tie of inferior and superior. The attachment be- 
tween client and patron descended from father to son, 
and made one family of the protector and protected. 
How much more does the free negro need a patron than 
did the Roman. Curious speculators on society, seeing 
that hereditary distinctions of rank gradually disappear 
in nations, have concluded that these distinctions were 
all induced by conquest and difference of race. No 
length of time will wear out the distinction between 
blacks and whites ; but proper subordination of the black 
to the white man will be sure to produce the usual at- 
tachment between lord and vassal, master and slave, pro- 
tector and protected. The fate of the Gripsey race in 
England shows the impossibility of governing half-civil- 
ized beings by mere law. The laws against them were 
numerous and bloody, and influenced their conduct no 
more than laws passed against crows and blackbirds. 
They heeded not the precepts and admonitions of the 
law, and have been exterminated by the avenging sword 
of the law. Such has been the fate of the Indians, and 
such will be the fate of the free negroes, if mobs, to the 
eternal disgrace of our country, do not anticipate the 
law. History furnishes but a single instance where ne- 
groes have been well governed without masters, and in 
that instance the rule was ten times more rigorous than 
that of the master. Tousaint, the president of Hayti, 
by a strict military surveillance, kept them at work on 
separate farms, and punished them capitally for the third 



APPENDIX. 277 

offence of quitting the farm without a written permit. 
Succeeding administrations have relaxed the government 
till the whole island is in a state of savage anarchy which 
invites and would justify another conquest and reduction 
of the inhabitants to that state of slavery for which alone 
they are fitted, and from which they so wickedly escaped. 

The great mortality, the vice and ignorance that pre- 
vail at the British colony of Sierra Leone, show that 
this attempt to improve the condition of the negro has 
resulted in consequences infinitely worse than slavery. 
Better governments at Liberia and Cape Palmas have 
prevented, so far, the exhibition of so much gross vice 
and ignorance ; but even in those colonies the mortality 
is so great as to deter those who value human life as the 
greatest of human blessings from encouraging emigration 
to them. But if almost certain death from the climate 
did not await the emigrant negroes, they must be extir- 
pated by the savages, or extirpate the savages to make 
room for themselves. No habitable part of Africa is 
unsettled, and the free blacks who go there in numbers 
must make room for themselves, sword in hand, as the 
whites did in America. We who maintain that it was a 
blessing to the negro to be brought from Africa and 
made a slave and a Christian, are estopped from con- 
tending that it is also a blessing to set him free and send 
him back to become a savage and a Pagan. Between 
the two blessings, the middle passage on the inward trip 
and the climate of the coast on the return, few would 
survive to tell of their happiness. 

Let us try the experiment of hiring them by the year, 
and if that fail, sell them into unconditional slavery. 



278 APPENDIX. 

Slavery is a blessing to the negro — at all events, it is 
better than the tender mercies of an American mob or 
an African cannibal, the Scylla and Charybdis which 
now threaten him. Slavery is too costly, too humane 
and merciful an institution for France, England or New 
England. The free competition of labor and capital in 
those countries where labor is redundant, is certain to 
bring the wages of labor down to the minimum amount 
that will support human life./ The employers of free 
laborers, like the riders of hired horses, try to get the 
most possible work out of them, for the least hire. They 
boast of the low rates at which they procure labor, and 
still hold up their heads in society uncensured and unre- 
proved. No slaveholder was ever so brutal as to boast of 
the low wages he paid his slaves, to pride himself on 
feeding and clothing them badly — neglecting the young, 
the aged, the sick and infirm; such a man would be 
hooted from society as a monster. Society hardly tole- 
rates inhumanity to horses, much less to slaves. But 
disguise the process a little, and it is a popular virtue to 
oppress free white poor people. Get the labor of the 
able-bodied husband as cheap as you can, and leave his 
wife, children and aged parents to starve, and you are 
the beau ideal of a man in England and New England/ 
Public opinion, as well as natural feeling, requires a man 
to pay his slave high wages ; the same public opinion 
commends your cleverness in paying low wages to free 
laborers, and nature and conscience oppose no obstacles 
to the screwing process. 

King Lear. Take physic, pomp ; 

Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, 
That thou mayest shake the superflux to them, 
And show tho heavens more just. 



APPENDIX. 279 

III. 

To say that free labor is cheaper than slave labor, is 
to say that the slave is better off, so far as physical 
comfort is concerned, than the free laborer. The wages 
of the free laborer exactly represent all the physical 
material comforts he and his family can • enjoy — the 
cost of slave labor consists (after the slaves are pur- 
chased) entirely of the comforts of life which the 
master gives to his slaves. The hirer of free laborers 
maintains the families of those laborers, in sickness and 
in health, in infancy and in old age, precisely as does 
the master his slaves — the only difference being that 
the free laborer expends the hire himself for those pur- 
poses, whilst the master expends it for the slave. If 
free labor be cheapest, it is because it costs the employer 
less to support the free laborer and his family, than it 
does the master to support his slaves. Price is the 
measure of things useful to man. If the slave's labor 
costs more than the free man's, he gets a larger measure 
of things useful to mankind. Now this is exact or de- 
monstrative reasoning, because it treats of quantities 
of things physical or material, which admit of ad- 
measurement. Mathematical certainty is attainable by 
argument of this kind. We think, (granting our prem- 
ises, that free labor is cheaper than slave labor,) we 
have attained this degree of certainty. We add as a 
corollary, that the slave's physical condition is exactly 
so much better than the free laborer's, as the cost of 
slave labor exceeds that of free labor. Now, as to the 
relative moral condition of the slave and the free laborer, 



280 APPENDIX. 

reasoning of this kind cannot be employed at all, be- 
cause we have to deal with things moral and metaphys- 
ical, in which there are no ascertainable quantities — 
no standard of admeasurement to appeal to. We can 
measure the physical comforts of life — such as food, 
raiment, &c, in various ways ; but all of them, by the 
common, agreed standard of price — the amount of dol- 
lars and cents which they cost — but we cannot measure 
morality, virtue, hope, happiness, despair, &c. To il- 
lustrate, the slave feels secure for himself and family, 
of future comfortable maintenance, but hopeless as to 
bettering his condition. The free laborer is harrowed 
with fears and apprehensions of the future, but along 
with these fears and apprehensions, entertains the hope 
of changing and improving his condition. In these 
cases we can get at no precise quantities — appeal to no 
standard of measure, to determine whether the attri- 
butes of slavery, or those of liberty are of greater 
quantity or value. We launch on a sea of moral or 
speculative reasoning, where we cannot approximate any 
thing like proof — each man's taste will be the only 
arbiter, and de gustibus non est disputandum. We 
have inverted, intentionally, the correct order of reason- 
ing. We come in the last place to prove our premises; 
we knew the reader would admit them till he saw the 
conclusions to which they infallibly led — then many a 
reader will revolt at those premises, because they lead 
to what are, in his mind, revolting conclusions. First, 
then, free labor is cheaper than slave labor, in a thickly 
settled country, else the European nations who sent 
slaves to America would have also employed them at 



APPENDIX. 

home ; for it is notorious that as a general, almost an 
universal rule, farmers and other capitalists employ 
that labor which is cheapest. 

Secondly. The slave-holding South is supplied by 
the North and other non-slaveholding countries, with 
all articles that can be made as well at the North as at 
the South — which proves that it is cheaper to employ 
free labor to make those articles and pay the expenses 
of transportation, than to have them made by slaves at 
home. 

Thirdly. In all old countries there is a superfluity 
of laborers, and they, in competing to get employment, 
under-bid each other, till wages reach the lowest point, 
that will support human existence ; but the master is 
afraid so to depress the wages of his slave, else he 
might lose the slave. 

Fourthly. The Puritan fathers and their immediate 
descendants were active slave-traders and slave-holders — 
their later posterity, neither more pious nor moral than 
their ancestors or their Southern neighbors, liberated 
their slaves, we may fairly infer, because they found 
free labor cheaper. 

Fifthly. It has been generally admitted by the op- 
ponents of slavery that free labor is cheaper. 

Having demonstrated that the physical condition of 
the slave is better than that of the free laborer, it re- 
mains only that we should apply this conclusion to the 
free negroes whom we propose to enslave. Their phys- 
ical condition would be improved by slavery, and their 
moral condition could not be made worse, for, unlike 
the white man, they have no hope of changing and 



282 APPENDIX. 

improving their condition whilst free. They cannot 
escape from the class of common laborers. The white's 
above them oppose an insuperable barrier to their ele- 
vation. It is certainly better to be a slave than a free 
laborer, without hope of improving one's condition. 

[Note. — We have left out the original cost of the 
slaves, in estimating the relative cheapness of slave 
and free, because formerly African slaves cost so little 
as not to have seriously influenced the preference given 
to free labor in Europe, and more recently our Northern 
States, after incurring that cost, found it cheaper to 
liberate the slaves and employ free labor.] 



IV. 
-^iHas the State the right to enslave them ?> Slavery 
is but a form of government, and we have shewn it is 
the duty and practice of every State to adopt the de- 
gree of control and form of government as near as 
practicable to the capacity and necessity of each indi- 
vidual. Guardians are provided for children, masters 
for apprentices, captains for sailors and soldiers, dark 
cells and hard work for convicts, and straight jackets 
for lunatics. No one doubts that it is as well the right 
as the duty of government to make these provisions, 
and abridge or take away liberty from all white citizens 
who are not qualified to enjoy it. Every other form 
of government than that of slavery has signally failed 
in the case of the negro. He is an enemy to himself, 
and an intolerable pest and nuisance to society, where 
ever among the whites he is free. The Abglitionists 
failing in their efforts to free the slaves, have sue. 



APPENDIX. 283 

ceeded wonderfully in aggravating and embittering the 
natural hostility of the white and black race. They 
have prompted the free negroes to assert their equality 
with the whites, and in return for their insolence, the 
whites are ready to expel them from the land. But 
expulsion is now, at least, impracticable. If it ever 
succeeds, it will require ages to complete it. In the 
meantime^it is the right and duty of the State to en- 
slave them, because experience has clearly proved that 
it is the only practicable mode of governing them. 
We deprive them of no right, because no one, black 
or white, has a right to liberty who abuses it to the 
detriment of himself or of society. They have the 
right to the protection and care of masters, but the 
law denies them the exercise of that right in not per- 
mitting them to hire or sell themselves. The common 
notion that liberty is good for man, is one of the most 
false and foolish that ever entered the human mind. 
None but brutes and savages desire entire liberty,,. 
The only free people in the world are the Digger In- 
dians of the Valley of the Great Salt Lake and the 
Australians of New Holland \ they know nothing of 
government, of society, of castes, of classes, or of sub- 
ordination of rank \ each man digs for worms and 
climbs for birds' eggs on his own hook \ they are per- 
fectly free, famished and degraded. We admire and 
love liberty, coupled with happiness, as much as any 
one. We pine with the caged bird, and rejoice with 
the free warblers of the grove and the forest. The 
sportive gambols of the colt fill us with pleasure. 

Quae velut latis equa trima campis 
Ludit exultim metuit que tangi. 



284 APPENDIX. 

Nature has fitted such creatures for liberty; but of 
cold, shivering, naked, houseless, starving liberty, the 
liberty of the prodigal son and the free negro, we 
entertain much the same opinion that FalstafT did of 
honor : — " What is honor ? A word. What is in that 
word honor ? What is that honor ? Air. A trim 
reckoning ! — \V ho hath it ? He who died o' Wednes- 
day. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. 
Is it insensible then ? Yea, to the dead. But it will 
not live with the living — therefore I'll none of it. 
Honor is a mere scutcheon, and so ends my catechism/ ' 
As civilization advances liberty recedes. The Cossacks 
of Russia are a thousand times more free than the en- 
lightened inhabitants of the city of New York. The 
Cossacks, living far from government, and having little 
property, are scarcely aware that a government exists. 
The enlightened citizen of New York daily feels the 
operation of the laws of the Union, the laws of the 
State, and the laws of the corporation; he is probably 
a member of a church, a club, of a Masonic society, 
and of a board of trade — he is controlled in his conduct 
by the rules, regulations and laws of all these, institu- 
tions; besides, he is the slave of fashion, and cannot, 
like the savage, dress and appear as he pleases : he 
has a wife and children to attend to and provide for, 
and all his spare moments must be devoted to them. 
Does such a man enjoy one moment of liberty? No; 
every moment has its appropriate duties, which he 
must slavishly perform, or he is a disgraced man. It 
is true, his slavery is self-imposed in a great measure. 
This only shews that civilized man does not desire 



APPENDIX. 285 

liberty. Was there ever a white savage — we mean 
one of the Caucasian race — except the wild Boy of 
Hanover? The Greeks and Romans were very lavish 
of the term barbarian, but we doubt whether they 
ever saw a savage. Herodotus treats of men without 
heads and with eyes in their breasts, in Africa, but 
says not a word of men with black skins and woolly 
heads. His learning, which embraces on this subject 
all known by his countrymen, only extended to the 
limits of civilization. Have the whites been civilized 
in some degree from the days of Noah, or did civ- 
ilization in the middle ages spread with electric speed 
through Norway, Sweden, Lapland and Russia? It 
matters not which proposition be true. The white 
race has either been always civilized, or has evinced a 
remarkable aptitude to adopt civilization ; they required 
no missionaries and colonization societies to civilize 
them. 

Alexander Everett, a Northern gentleman, in a work 
on America, contends that civilization had its birth with 
the negroes, and that the rest of the world derived it 
from them. In locating the birth-place of civilization, 
he very nearly concurs with a majority of the learned. 
The records of history and the remains of art alike de- 
signate the banks of the lower Nile as the cradle of civil- 
ization. For four thousand years, certainly, the negro 
race has been in immediate contact with civilization. A 
dense population, without interruption or interval, for 
ages before the time of Pharaoh and Moses, extended 
along the Nile from the Pyramids and Thebais to the 
negroes along the white Nile. Between Thebais and 



286 APPENDIX. 

the negroes, an interval of a few hundred miles was set- 
tled by people of Arabic descent — a people from the 
days of Abraham always more or less civilized. ^*fet 
with all the advantage of contact with civilization for 
four thousand years, not a single negro was ever re- 
claimed from his savage state till he was caught, tied, 
tamed and domesticated like the wild ox or the wild 
horse. 'Talk of sending missionaries to such a people ! 
Why, millions of missionaries have been side by side 
with them for four thousand years, and none but the 
slave-dealer ever made a convert. War, pestilence and 
famine are the best missionaries to teach civilization, (ex- 
cept the conjunction of a thin skin and a hard frost,) for 
necessity is the mother of invention, civilization but ac- 
cumulated invention, and war, pestilence and famine the 
great necessities which prompt men to invent, and teach 
them to remember and improve what they invent. <A 
people so imbecile in intellect, or so improvident as not 
to be civilized by these great necessities, can only be 
civilized by slavery. , The horse and ox will not willingly 
submit to the yoke to provide for the exigencies of winter, 
however eloquently you discourse to them on the necessity 
and propriety of such conduct ; no more will the negro. 
A crazy poet or an Irish orator (in love with universal 
emancipation,) would permit the horse and the negro to 
luxuriate in liberty in the summer and starve in winter. 
Not so a sensible Englishman and profound philosopher 
like Carlyle, to whom we are indebted for this illustra- 
tion. He thinks the liberated negroes in the West In- 
dies are no more operated on in the regulation of their 
lives, by reason, than the horse or the ox. But like the 



APPENDIX. 287 

ox and ass, the negro may be domesticated; he is not 
like the Indian of America, an animal feroe naturae. 
The Indian, like the savage races of Canaan, is doomed 
to extermination, and those who most sympathize with 
his fate would be the first to shoot him if they lived on 
the frontier. ^Gf-od did not direct his chosen people to 
exterminate all races; such as were fit for slaves they 
were ordered to make slaves of. Despite the mawkish 
sensibility of the age, practical men are, without the aid 
of immediate revelation, pursuing the same course; they 
slay the Indians hip and thigh, as in the days of Moses 
and Joshua, and enslave the negroes. " There is nothing 
new under the sun." This is all right, because it is 
necessary. Father Bacchus (when drunk, no doubt,) 
and the last exhibitor of wild beasts in New York, ( Quid 
non mortalia pectora cogis y auri sacra fames,) drove 
lions to their cars; yet lions to-day are as useless and 
ferocious as in the days of Bacchus ; and the Indian of 
to-day is as fierce and wild as those who met Columbus 
on the beach. 

" Like the fox, 
"Who, ever so tame, so cherished and locked up, 
Will have a wild trick of his ancestors." 

In his proper sphere, we love and respect the negro. 
He is eminently docile, imitative and parasitical. He 
will not go to Liberia, nor to the West Indies, because 
he has too much good sense to trust his fate to a commu- 
nity of negroes. He knows he is the ivy, and would 
cling to the white oak, not to the ivy, for support. He 
respects, as we do, some of the Abolitionists, because 
many of them are men who will make any sacrifice of 



288 APPENDIX. 

their time and money to achieve what they think right. 
They are crazy Quixotes, no doubt, but their high aims 
and lofty disinterestedness make them far more respect- 
able than they would be as plain, plodding farmers of 
La Mancha. Don Quixote mad, is the noblest, because 
the most chivalrous and disinterested of all the heroes of 
Epic poetry ; he is but a drivelling, penitent dotard when 
he recovers. We would as soon stop a crusader or a 
fox-hunter in mid career, and prove to him the folly of 
his pursuit, as cure these Abolitionists of their madness. 
Such illusions afford so much higher pleasure than the 
sober realities of life, that it is the part of true philos- 
ophy to cherish, not dispel them. Much the larger por- 
tion of the abolitionists are, however, men of very dif- 
ferent characters — Catilines and Jack Cades, men of des- 
perate fortunes and desperate morals, who make as fierce 
war on landed property at home as they do on slavery 
abroad. The negroes despise the Clay clique of Coloni- 
zationists, because, believing slavery morally wrong, they 
have not the courage to say so, nor the justice to give 
the slave up. If slavery be wrong, the abolitionists are 
right. We say to the colonizationists, you cannot send 
the free negroes away. They have felt the coming storm, 
they have intermarried with the slaves, they have hired 
themselves to the farmers, and cling and cluster about 
the penates at the very horns of the domestic altar. 

Hie Hecuba, et natas necquiquam altaria circum 
Precipites atra, ceu tempestate Columbse 
Condensas, et Divum amplexse semulacra tenebant. 

No ruthless Pyrrhus shall tear them thence. They 
are the guests of the farmer, and the Turk holds not 



ArPEXDix. 289 

hospitality half so sacred as the Southern farmer. His 
house is his castle, which he will defend to the last 
extremity against all intrusion. The barons of Runi- 
mede have their exact prototype in the Southern farmer. 
Better beard the lion in his den than touch any thing 
that has entered the sacred precinct of his farm. 

But the free negro is not only the guest ; he is, for 
the tinie, the property of the farmer; and Shakspeare 
has well expressed the English sense of property, from 
the lips of an Italian speaking of his wife : 

Petruchio. — I will be master of what is my own ; 
She is my goods, my chattels ; she is my house, 
My household staff, my field, my barn, 
My horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing, 
And here she stands ; touch her whoever dare. 

Thus will the farmer defend the free negro who has 
selected him for his patron and master. Whilst on the 
subject of Shakspeare, we would invite those who think 
that slavery degrades the character of the slave, to read 
the play of " As you like it." They will find old Adam 
a more elevated character than any anti-slavery man that 
ever lived — and the character is true to nature. 

"Adam. — Master, go on, and I will follow thee 
To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty." 

Equality begets universal envy, meanness and unchari- 
tableness — slavery elevates and purifies the sentiments of 
master and slave. 

To return from this digression — very many of the free 

negroes, alarmed by the portentous signs of the times, 

threatening them with extermination or expulsion, have 

attached themselves to white masters. Will our legis- 

x 



290 APPENDIX. 

lators sanction and encourage these contracts, or will 
they send them all to Africa? Suppose the project suc- 
ceeds, and all the free negroes are shipped off — how long 
will it be before we are called to send off our slaves also ? 

Northern abolition quieted and the free negroes sent 
off, may not gradual emancipation rear its head and prove 
a worse enemy, because a domestic one, than any with 
which we have had to contend ? But a small portion 
of the Southern press even now undertakes to justify 
slavery, to maintain that it is right in the abstract, 
morally right ; that it is expedient or profitable. Will 
not this press, when foreign interference is quieted, and 
the free negroes removed, become the advocate of grad- 
ual emancipation ? As they say not a word to justify 
slavery, we presume they think it wrong ; and if so, it is 
their duty, as conscientious men, to embrace the first safe 
occasion to get rid of it. 

The Abolitionists themselves furnish the most conclu. 
sive evidence that slavery must exist in every society 
until human nature itself is changed. Nay, they pro- 
pose to change all man's nature, in order to fit him for 
that social equality, that community of property, and of 
other things more sacred than property, which they 
would erect on the ruins of our present system of society. 
The Ohio ladies hate slavery, and seeing that marriage 
brings about one of the forms of slavery, to be consis- 
tent, they will have no more marriages after the old 
fashion. Separate property, too, gives power to those 
who hold property to command the labor of those who 
hold none. "Property/' say they, "is a thief!" and 
must be abolished. The Bible commands wives to obey 



APPENDIX. 291 

their husbands, and slaves their masters ; the Bible must 
be cast into the flames ! Christianity and Socialism are 
cleadry enemies. But after all the institutions of society 
are destroyed, families abolished, churches demolished, 
the Bible burnt, and property held in common, still they 
have the candor to admit that the selfishness of human 
nature would for a time disturb the harmonious working 
of their system. They promise us, however, that a few 
generations would change and perfect man's nature, and 
then Socialism would work admirably. At the end of 
the time we suspect they would become converts to the 
sage reflection of Christopher North : u There is a great 
deal of human nature in man !" We treat the Abolition- 
ists and Socialists as identical, because they are noto- 
riously the same people, employing the same arguments 
and bent on the same schemes. Abolition is the first 
step in Socialism ; the former proposes to abolish negro 
slavery, the latter ail kinds of slavery — religion, govern- 
ment, marriage, families, property — nay, human nature 
itself. Yet the former contains the germ of the latter, 
and very soon ripens into it ; Abolition is Socialism in 
its infancy ./Ladies of Ohio ! Horace Greely ! Socialists 
of France ! Is it not so ? 



SLAVEET JUSTIFIED. 

THE SUBJECT CONTINUED. 

Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet : an Auto-biography : has 
recently been the subject of review in the Edinburgh, 
the North British, and Blackwood. Each of these 
able Reviews admits that Alton Locke, in the main, 
gives a fair picture of the state of the poor in England, 
and that their condition is intolerable, and daily grow- 
ing worse. Blackwood and the North British Review 
farther admit, with the Socialists, that this desperate 
condition of the poor is owing to free competition, or 
liberty ; and even the Edinburgh, with all its love for 
political economy, distinctly alleges that a cure for the 
sufferings of the working classes may be found by re- 
curring to the old order of things : — feudalism, vassal- 
age and serfdom. It further appears from these Re- 
views, that socialism, with thinking men, is almost uni- 
versal in England. Except the Edinburgh Review, and 
a little clique that adhere to jtf all men agree that free 
competition has brought on the evils under which the 
Empire is suffering, and that free competition must be 
checked and corrected, or the Empire be subverted. 
Now free competition is nothing in the world but the 
absence of domestic slavery^/ and these Reviews, all 
though afraid to use the word, do in effect distinctly 
admit that the intolerable condition of the working 
classes is owing to the absence of that form of domestic 



APPENDIX. 293 

slavery which afforded support and protection to the 
poor in feudal times. Experience has universally 
shown, that the slavery of the working classes to the 
rich,* which grows out of liberty and equality, or free) 
competition, is ten times more onerous and exacting I 
than domestic slavery. The bathos of human misery is 
to be a slave without a master. Such is the condition of 
the poor in the free States of Europe 5 they are slaves 
without masters/" They have no houses, no property, 
none to protect them, none to care for them. In the 
fierce competition for employment, the intense struggle 
to get a livelihood, and the ruinous underbidding it oc- 
casions, we see the rich devouring the poor, and the 
poor devouring one another. This process is well de- 
scribed by the Chartist, Crossthwaite, in Alton Locke : 

"It is a sin to add our weight to the crowd of arti- 
sans who are now choking and strangling each other to 
death, as the prisoners did in the black hole of Cal- 
cutta. Let those who will, turn beasts of prey and feed 
upon their fellows; but let us at least keep ourselves 
pure. It may be the law of political civilization, that 
the rich should eat up the poor, and the poor eat up 
each other. Then, I here rise and curse that law, that 
civilization, that nature. Either I will destroy them or 
they shall destroy me. As a slave, as an increased 
burden on my fellow-sufferers, I will not live. So help 
me Grod ! I will take no more work to my house, and I 
call upon all to sign a protest to that effect."' 

England is a Garden of Eden, in which the birds of 
the air, the fishes of the sea, and the beasts of the field 
participate equally with the owners of the soil in the 



294 APPENDIX. 

fruits of the earth. The working man alone, who has 
made this garden to blossom like the rose, is excluded 
from its enjoyment. Hiatus, valde dejlendus ! And 
he is excluded simply because he is not like the horse 
and the ox, and the sheep, the fish in the pond and 
the game in the preserves, the property of the owner of 
the soil. Make him also property, and he would be 
better fed and cared for than the brutes, for he is more 
valuable property; and besides, it is more natural for 
man to love his fellow man, provided that fellow man 
be his dependant or his master, than it is to love brute 
creatures. God, when he created the world, established 
a community of goods, not only between men, but also 
let in the brute creation to their full share of enjoy- 
ment of the fruits of the earth. An attempt has been 
made in Southern and middle Europe, for the last 
century or two, to establish a new order of things on 
the ruins of feudalism, which was a modification of the 
old order. This attempt has signally failed, as is at- 
tested by almost daily revolutions, the starving condi- 
tion of the working classes, and the general prevalence 
of socialist doctrines, which doctrines propose the total 
subversion and re-construction of the social fabric. 
We entirely agree with the socialists, that free compe- 
tition is the bane of modern society. We also agree 
with them, that it is right and necessary to establish in 
some modified degree, a community of property. We 
agree with them in the end they propose to attain, and 
only differ as to the means. 

We do not believe that any new discoveries have been 
made in moral science for the last four thousand years, 



APPENDIX. 295 

or that any will hereafter be made. In the remotest 
antiquity, men had the same lights of experience be- 
fore them that we have to-day, and they were wiser men 
and profounder thinkers than we, because their atten- 
tion was not divided and frittered away, by a thousand 
objects, wants and pursuits, as ours is, in consequence 
of the many discoveries in physical science. The an- 
cients led simpler lives, were harrassed by fewer cares, 
had their minds exercised on fewer subjects, and were 
therefore wiser men than we. Their works are imper- 
ishable, and have a reputation as wide as the world. 
The fame of the best of ours is ephemeral and local. 
It is to them we should recur for lessons in government, 
rather than look to our cotemporaries or indulge in rash 
experiment. Thousands of years before the days of 
Moses and Numa, Solon and Lycurgus, the field of ex- 
periment had been exhausted, and they no doubt were 
aware of the results of those experiments, and profited 
by them. 

So little has human nature changed, that we find the 
men of to-day, with all their virtues and vices, passions 
and peculiarities, more exactly and faithfully portrayed 
in the Old Testament, and by the Greek and Latin 
poets, than by any English or American author of the 
present day. It is with human nature that govern- 
ment has to deal, and we should look back to th os 
who understood it best, to learn how to deal with it. 
The Socialists expect to organise society on entirely new 
principles. Society every where is much alike and of 
gradual growth. It is the result of the passions, the 
motives, the affections, and the selfishness of human 



296 



APPENDIX. 



nature. These are much, the same in all ages and in 
all countries. What madness and folly, at this late 
day, to form society for human beings regardless of hu- 
man nature. Yet the Socialists are guilty of this folly, 
and gravely propose to change man's nature to fit him 
for their new institutions. How much more wise, pru- 
dent and philosophical it would be to recur to some old 
tried forms of society, especially as we shall presently 
show that such forms of society have existed, and do 
now exist, as will remove all the evils they complain of, 
and attain all the ends they propose. 

A community of property, in some modified degree, 
existed in all the states of antiquity, whether savage or 
civilized, and continued to exist under the form of feu- 
dalism throughout the dark ages. This community of 
property existed in two forms. The one form, universal 
among savages, is where the lands belong to the State 
and the individuals composing the State have a com- 
mon .right of enjoyment in those lands. Society may 
get along very happily under this order of things. Nor, 
indeed, is it wholly inconsistent with the advance of 
civilization. Every one recollects the example of Sparta, 
when there was no separate property in lands, and in 
modern times the Peruvian Indians, the most civilized 
in America, held their lands in common. The few in- 
stances, however, of this kind of community of pro- 
perty among civilized nations, shows that it is adapted 
only to the savage state. The other kind of community 
of property, which is at least as old as civilization itself, 
will require some pains to explain, because we are the first 
who have treated it in this light. No doubt the same re- 



APPENDIX. 297 

flections are daily passing through thousands of minds, 
that now pass through ours, and we but give a new 
name to an old thought. This latter kind of commu- 
nity of property exists where separate ownership hav- 
ing been acquired in all the soil of a State, those who 
own that soil own also those individuals who cultivate 
it. A beautiful example and illustration of this kind 
of communism, is found in the instance of the Patri- 
arch Abraham. His wives and his children, his men 
servants and his maid servants, his camels and his cat- 
tle, were all equally his property. He could sacrifice 
Isaac or a ram, just as he pleased. He loved and pro- 
tected all, and all shared, if not equally, at least fairly, 
in the products of their light labor. Who would not 
desire to have been a slave of that old Patriarch, stern 
and despotic as he was ? How quick he would have 
beheaded a Yankee abolitionist who had abused his 
open hospitality to entice away his slaves. Poor Ha- 
gar ! wert thou deluded by some vender of quack medi- 
cines and wooden nutmegs ? How many Hagars, starv- 
ing in the wilderness, may now be found at the North ? 
Nay, it is worse than a wilderness to them, for they are 
surrounded by luxuries which they cannot taste, and 
by fellow beings whose hideous scowl of hate aggra- 
vates their woes. Pride, affection, self-interest, moved 
Abraham to protect, love and take care of his slaves. 
The same motives operate on all masters, and secure 
comfort, competency and protection to the slave. A 
man's wife and children are his slaves, and do they not 
enjoy, in common with himself, his property ? As he 
advances in age and his wants become fewer, his chil- 



298 APPENDIX. 

dren most always get the lion's share. Look to a well 
ordered farm and see whether the cattle, the horses, the 
sheep, and the hogs, do not enjoy their full proportion 
of the proceeds of the farm. Would you emancipate 
them too? Why not? Liberty and idleness are as 
natural and agreeable to them as to slaves. 

Men love the brute creatures that belong to them. 
It is the law of God impressed on the heart of man 
that secures good and kind treatment to the brutes, far 
more effectually than all human law can do. The same 
law of God makes man love his slaves far more than 
he does his horse. The affection which all men feel 
for what belongs to them, and for what is dependent 
on them, is Nature's magna charta, which shields, pro- 
tects and provides for wives, children and slaves. The 
selfishness of man's nature, which occasions ail the 
oppression of the weak by the powerful, the poor by 
the rich, in free society, is the very instrument which 
Providence in his wisdom has chosen to protect the 
weak and the poor in a natural and healthy state of 
society — that is in a society where domestic slavery ex- 
ists. Ye meddlesome, profane, presumptuous abolition- 
its ! think ye that God has done his work imperfectly 
and needs your aid ? He that takes account of the 
sparrow, has he no care for the slave ? Is he waiting, 
and has he waited for four thousand years, for you to 
do his work ? Must you steal the negro before he 
can save his soul ? Are not the negroes whom you 
have stolen and freed, ten times more vicious than our 
slaves? Has God permitted slavery to exist so long 
and so generally, because he knew no better, or be- 



APPENDIX. 299 

cause lie was afraid to denounce it, or was lie waiting 
for you to help hini ? 

In the February No. of the North British Review, 
in a critique on Sir Charles Lyell's Travels in North 
America, we find the following singular and contra- 
dictory language. We say contradictory, for if " self- 
interest and domestic feeling combine to surround the 
slave with every blessing," what becomes of the 
"cruelty and injustice," the "sound of the whip and 
the clank of the chain ?" Does domestic feeling; ex- 
hibit itself in this way ? 

" Could we look at the slave in his simple humanity, 
without regarding him as a being of the future, we 
should view him as the inmate of a luxurious house, 
with all the blessings with which self-interest and do- 
mestic feeling combine to surround him. Under this 
bright phase, and in striking contrast with the in-dwel- 
ler of the work-house, or the laborer in the factory, we 
are disposed to forget the horrors of the middle passage, 
and shut our ears to the sound of the whip and the 
clank of the chain. But when the mind's eye rests 
upon the precious jewel — the white soul which the clay 
cask encloses — eternal truth recoils from the sight of a 
spirit in shackles, and immortal affection clasps in her 
warmest embrace the victims of cruelty and injustice." 

We suppose the writer thinks there are no slaves in 
heaven, but plenty of savages, cannibals and free ne- 
groes. u The Devil can quote scripture for his pur- 
pose," but we think this would puzzle him. 

If any doubt our theory, that domestic slavery does 
establish a fair community of goods, we cite them to 



800 APPENDIX. 

the facts. Look to the old Patriarchs and their slaves, 
to the feudal lords and their vassals, or come to the 
South and see our farms. See the aged and infirm, 
the women and children, on every farm, more tenderly 
watched over and better provided for, than the sturdy 
and laborious. Grod intended, no doubt, that those who 
most needed sympathy, assistance and attention, should 
have most of it. Put your own house in order, ye abo- 
litionists ? When the women and children, the sick 
and the aged, in your laboring class, are secure of the 
same ample provision, sympathy and attention as our 
slaves, then, and not till then, offer your advice to us. 
But we have said the slave is secure of a fair pro- 
portion of the profits in the community of property 
which grows out of the institution of domestic slavery. 
We will explain how this happens, and cite facts to 
prove that it is so. As man rises in the scale of civi- 
lization his wants increase, his skill and capacity ior 
production increase pari passu. As a slave, he needs 
more and is entitled to more, of the products of the 
joint concern, than the mere newly imported savage. 
As he assimilates himself to his master, his master's 
attachment to him increases ; he is made a mechanic, a 
dining-room or body servant, and is treated very differ* 
ently from what we call " out hands. " Each, however, 
has his wants supplied. The negroes first imported to 
this country were badly clad ; clothes to them were an 
irksome incumbrance. Our male field hands even now 
generally prefer a bench by the fire and a blanket, to 
the finest feather bed in the world. They are but grad- 
ually learning to like plank floors to their houses. The 



APPENDIX. 301 

masters are more ready to supply their wants than they 
are to acquire them. 

There is another law of our nature that secures to 
the slave his right. Place men in the relation of 
master and slave, and the wiser and more strong 
willed invariably rules. It is so in the case of man 
and wife, father and child, and slaves have of- 
ten been " a power behind the throne greater than 
the throne itself/' and thus ruled empires. Negroes 
do not rule their masters, because of the inferiority of 
race, but they are better treated as they advance in 
morality and intelligence. 

Besides that/domestic slavery does away with com- 
petition, so ruinous to the working classes in free 
countries, and occasions a community of profits if not 
of property— it supplies another great desideratum 
of the socialists, and,, indeed, of the political econ- 
omists too : it brings about the Association of 
Labor. This result, too, is obtained in a better form 
than any we have seen suggested by the Socialists. 
They propose only to associate men of the same trade. 
Domestic slavery profitably associates men, women and 
children, mechanics and common laborers. On a farm, 
under the supervision of one master, who supplies the 
skill and capital, all ages and sexes can find appropriate 
and profitable employment. Set the slaves on a farm 
free, and leave each to get employment, and however 
disposed to work, the products of their labor would not 
sit half what they wess before. Much time must be 
lost in looking for work, and they would rarely find 
beuations where all the members of a large family could 



302 APPENDIX. 

get employment. Much loss would ensue from the want 
of one common head to find them work and give skill- 
ful direction to their labor, and still more from the fact 
that each one buying for himself, their wants would be 
supplied at retail instead of wholesale prices. 

This association of labor and capital, by means of 
domestic slavery, would remove another evil that be- 
wilders, staggers and confounds Malthusians, Economists 
and Socialists alike. This is the evil of excessive pop- 
ulation, an evil sorely felt through half of Europe, and 
irremediable because confined to the most indigent who 
have no means of emigrating. If they were slaves, 
their masters would send them at once to countries 
where population was sparse and labor dear ; and they 
would be sent off in families, not separated as free peo- 
ple generally are when they remove. Thus is slavery 
the simple and adequate remedy for the greatest evil 
with which mankind is afflicted at present or threat- 
ened for the future. 

We cannot believe that the Socialists do not see that 
domestic slavery is the only practicable form of social- 
ism — they are afraid yet to pronounce the word. 

An admirable proof and illustration of our doctrine, 
that slavery is communism, might be had by making all 
the working-men in England slaves to the land-holders, 
and requiring by law the land-holders to support them 
as we do our slaves. Would not, in such case, the 
working-men be joint owners of the farm? If the land- 
holders were also permitted to sell them, or remove them 
to the colonies where labor is scarce and dear, it would 
be an excellent bargain on both sides. Labor and capi- 



APPENDIX. 303 

tal would thus be beneficially associated. They do sell 
white men now in England, and remove them to dis- 
tant colonies, but require as a perquisite to the boon, 
that a man should first steal a turnip or shoot a hare- 
Many take the boon even on these harsh terms, rather 
than starve ; they steal in order to be shipped to Xew 
Holland and sold as slaves. They are willing to en- 
counter the disgrace of crime, and be torn from every 
tie of friendship and affection, rather than remain in 
England and starve. Could the poor of England sell 
themselves and families for terms of years, or for life, 
or in perpetuity, they would at once have the means of 
certain and comfortable support. Removed to new 
colonies, they might by extra work and frugality, soon 
purchase their liberty again. The situation of the slave 
is a good one to amass money, because he may save all 
he makes, the master supplying all his wants. 

We have often been reminded of the absurdity of 
the law which prevents a man's selling himself, or to 
speak more accurately, which refuses to enforce perform- 
ance of the contract, whilst observing the character of 
the emigration to California. Xo poor man could get to 
the mines, except by deserting the army, the navy, or 
the merchant service. The law permitted him to sell 
his liberty for five years, and subject himself to hard 
fare and harsh treatment, and low wages, provided he 
would enter either of those services. He might sell 
himself for eight dollars a month, and have the cat 
applied to his back gratis once a quarter, but he might 
not sell himself for fifty dollars per month to work in 
the mines and be well treated. The law, we know, is 



304 APPENDIX. 

the perfection of reason, and liberty the greatest good, 
yet we can't help thinking, when a strong young fellow 
finds his whole capital reduced to his own person, 
it would be as well to let him pawn that or sell it, " to 
make a raise/' It is the only way a poor fellow can 
get a start in life sometimes, and it seems hard to pro- 
hibit his using, in the way of trade, the only capital he 
has left. We wonder it never occurred to the econo- 
mists, who so much admire free trade and free compe- 
tition, that the denial of this right was part of the re- 
strictive and protective system. Laissez nous faire ! 
Let us sell ourselves if we please ! 

That the condition of working men, in all old coun- 
tries where population is dense, is a thousand times 
worse than that of our slaves, is a fact that no one will 
dispute. This fact is worth all the theories in the world, 
and shows conclusively that the common laborers should 
be slaves, in old countries. It is hard for us Ameri- 
cans to understand why this must ever be so, for here 
population is generally sparse, and workiag men scarce ; 
so that working men are in demand and can get just 
such wages as they choose to demand. Mrs. Trollope, 
by far the most philosophical traveller who has visited 
America, very justly remarked, that the difficulty of 
retaining a servant in Cincinnati, showed that there 
the master or employer was under obligations to the 
servant. The servant might work one day in the week 
and get enough wages to live on all the week ; the mas- 
ter needed a servant every day and could with difficulty 
get one, because masters were more numerous than 
servants. The competition was among masters to get 



APPENDIX. 305 

servants, not among servants to get places. This com- 
petition of course continually increased the wages of 
servants. "We will venture the assertion, based upon 
mere theory, that this state of things is already changed 
in Ohio — servants have become more numerous than 
employers. There is already competition and under- 
bidding to get places, because population is dense ) and 
we will stake our reputation, that the white servants in 
Cincinnati are not as well paid as our negro slaves. 
We mean that their wages are not sufficient to secure 
to them and their families the same comforts in all sea- 
sons of the year, in health, and in sickness, as we allow 
our slaves. In a newly and partially settled country 
like California, working men have greatly the advan- 
tage over mere moneyed men, and slavery is not neces- 
sary for their protection. Competition in such countries 
is attended with no evils, and greatly promotes the 
rapid development of its resources. In settling a new 
country, free labor is better than slave labor, because 
competition stimulates industry, without impairing the 
condition of the laborer. In old countries, every stim- 
ulant to increased industry is an injury to the laboring 
class, for thereby a few do the work that should employ 
many, and thus leave the many to starve. In old coun- 
tries, human wisdom can devise no effectual means to 
provide for the poor, where lands have become separate 
property, except by making slaves of those who hold no 
property to those who have property, and thus in fact, 
if not in form, establishing a community of property. 
The history of the free States of Europe, for the last 
sixty years, and the present condition of the poor in 



306 APPENDIX. 

those States, we think conclusively proves this. All 
parties admit that society there requires radical change. 
They must go back to domestic slavery. Civilized so- 
ciety cannot long exist without it. In conclusion, we 
will sum up the evidence that establishes this truth be- 
yond doubt, independent of all theory. /In the slave 
States of this Union all classes of society are satisfied 
with government as it is; famine is neither known nor. 
apprehended, and there is no complaint that the wages 
of the working class are inadequate to their comforta- 
ble support. In the whole South there is not one So- 
cialist, not one man, rich or poor, proposing to subvert 
and re-construct society. Society is in a natural, 
healthy and contented state. Such was very much the 
condition of society in middle and southern Europe 
two centuries ago, before feudalism disappeared and 
liberty and equality were established. Now, in. these 
latter countries, famine and revolutions, are daily occur- 
rences; the poor are discontented, riotous and insur- 
rectionary, and the rich, from mere sympathy with the 
sufferings of the poor, have become young English men, 
Chartists and Socialists, and admit that the organiza- 
tion of society is wholly wrong, and the sufferings of 
the poor intolerable. What more proof is needed, that 
the diseases that afflict society with them are occasioned 
by the absence of domestic slavery, and what remedy 
so obvious as to remove the cause of those diseases by 
restoring that institution ? 



CONTENTS, 



CHAPTER I. 

Free Trade, page 7 

CHAPTER II. 

Failure of Free Society and Rise of Socialism, 3-1 

CHAPTER III. 

Subject continued, ..... 73 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Two Philosophies, .... 80 

CHAPTER V. 

Negro Slavery, ...... 82 

CHAPTER VI. 

Scriptural Authority for Slavery, . 96 

CHAPTER VII. 

Domestic Affection, ..... 105 



308 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Religion, page 109 

CHAPTER IX. 

The Balance of Trade, .... 118 

C HAPTER X. 

Banks, 125 

CHAPTER XI. 

Usury, . 133 

CHAPTER XII. 

Towns, Rivers and Roads, . . . 136 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Education, 144 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Exclusive Agriculture, .... 149 

CHAPTER XV. 

The Association of Labor, ... 161 

CHAPTER XVI. 

The Free Laborers Cares and Anxieties, . 164 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Liberty and Free Trade, .... 169 



CONTENTS. 309 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Head-Work and Hand- Work, . . . page 172 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Declaration of Independence and Virginia Bill of 

Eights, 175 

CHAPTER XX. 

The Marriage Relation, .... 194 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Morals of Free Society, .... 196 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Small Nationalities, 202 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

The Higher Law, 201 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Infidelity and Abolitionism, . . . 205 

CHAPTER XXV. 

Revolutions and Reformations, ... 208 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

The Slave Trade, ..... 210 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

Woman's Rights, 213 



CO>W T S. j^^ 
CHAPTER XXVIII.' 

The Summing Up, page 221 



APPENDIX. 

Slavery Justified — 
Liberty and Equality — Socialism — Young Eng- 
land — Domestic Slavery, . . . page 226 

What shall be done with the Free Negroes ? 

No. I, 259 

No. II, 272 

No. in, 279 

No. iv, . . . . . . . 282 

Slavery Justified — 

The subject continued, .... 293 



